Isabel Sawhill, Adam Thomas, and Emily Monea believe that given the well-documented costs of nonmarital births to the children and parents in fragile families, as well as to society as a whole, policy makers' primary goal should be to reduce births to unmarried parents. The authors say that the nation's swiftly rising nonmarital birth rate has…

Using a long panel dataset of Chinese farm households covering the period of 1987-2002, this paper studies how major health shocks happening to household adults affect children's school attainments. We find that primary school-age children are the most vulnerable to health shocks, with their chances to enter middle school dropping by 9.9…

This annual snapshot of child well-being is intended to inform policymakers and the public of the progress of and challenges to ensuring the health, welfare, and safety of all children. Following an introduction, this report contains seven sections: (1) The State of Children and Families, including data on births and family structure; (2) The…

Using data from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth, we show that women who report that religion is "very important" in their everyday life have both higher fertility and higher intended fertility than those saying religion is "somewhat important" or "not important." Factors such as unwanted fertility, age at…

Since welfare reform in 1996, marriage has been promoted as a means to reduce welfare dependency and out-of-wedlock childbearing. Despite extensive public and academic discourse surrounding marriage promotion, a basic factor preceding and predicting marriage--expectations to marry--has received little attention. Using insights from the life course…

In 2002, Child Trends drew on statistics and research findings to produce a report called "Ten Reasons to Keep the Focus on Teen Childbearing." That report took note of the steady decline in the nation's teenage pregnancy and childbearing rates, beginning in 1991, while citing multiple reasons to continue to be concerned about teen childbearing.…

Nancy E. Adler, winner of the Award for Distinguished Scientific Applications of Psychology, is cited for her research on reproductive health examining adolescent decision making with regard to contraception, conscious and preconscious motivations for pregnancy, and perception of risk for sexually transmitted diseases, and for her groundbreaking…

This paper explores a change in a mode of governing in Japan during the administration of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi (2001-2006) through an examination of what I call the story of blue pee. The story circulated among people engaged in implementing child welfare policies at the local level, and implied that mothers today were ignorant in the…

This article investigates forms of strategic interaction between siblings during childhood. The authors argue that these interactions, characterized by notions of reciprocity, equivalence and constructions of fairness, are worked out in relation to responsibility, power, knowledge and sibling status. Birth order and age are not experienced as…

We examine the impact of sibling size on children's education. The theoretical framework shows an opposite relationship between the number of children within family and their school performance. Empirical works diverge between those corroborating this theory and those leading to ambiguous results such a positive correlation or the absence of any…

We present the conceptual and empirical foundation and curriculum content of the Mindfulness-Based Childbirth and Parenting (MBCP) program and the results of a pilot study of n = 27 pregnant women participating in MBCP during their third trimester of pregnancy. MBCP is a formal adaptation of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program and was…

Background: Longitudinal research has produced a wealth of knowledge about individual, family, and social predictors of crime. However, nearly all studies have started after children are age 5, and little is known about earlier risk factors. Methods: The 1970 British Cohort Study is a prospective population survey of more than 16,000 children born…

A study of 422 female teachers showed that approximately 67% of those who leave teaching leave the work force altogether. A newborn child is the most important determinants of labor force exit. Comparing teacher and nonteacher attrition rates for persons with similar educational attainment, nonteachers are more likely to change jobs/occupations.…

Mentoring girls is a challenge. Girls will come to mentors with hard questions and great hope. Mentoring is about building trust over a long period of time. If a mentor cares about the girls and follows through with the promises that he or she makes to them, a mentor will be successful in helping them to improve their lives. This "Guide"…

A most common belief is that giftedness is the cause of problems in sibling relationships when the family is "mixed", has at least one gifted child, and at least one non-gifted one. This belief has been accepted not only by parents and educators of the gifted, but also by researchers in the area of gifted education in general and…