College of Behavioral & Social Sciences
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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations..
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Item DOES WOMEN'S CONTINUATION IN THE LABOR FORCE MATTER FOR UNION FORMATION? AN ASSESSMENT OF EVIDENCE FROM THE UNITED STATES AND LATIN AMERICA.(2024) Hurtado, Constanza; Sayer, Liana C.; Caudillo, Mónica L.; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Social scientists have long been interested in the interplay between women’s roles as paid employees, partners and mothers. One of the first puzzles they intended to solve was about the consequences of women’s participation in the labor force for marriage. Currently, evidence about high-income Western countries overwhelming supports that women’s employment does not hinder union formation generally or marriage specifically. This conclusion is consistent when looking at multiple dimensions of employment, including earnings, employment status, economic potential, and job quality. Women’s employment engagement during the transition to adulthood have received scarce attention as a determinant of whether and when women move in with a romantic partner for the first time. In particular, and despite its relevance to understanding family-work dynamics across life, the relationship between continuous employment, the number of years employed without breaks/interruptions, and union formation has been overlooked. Additionally, despite increasing rates of women’s participation in the labor force and drastic sociodemographic changes in the last decades, the association between women’s employment and union formation in Latin American countries has been scarcely examined. To address these two gaps in the existing literature, this dissertation analyzes whether—and how—employment engagement influences women’s transitions into their first unions. Specifically, I measure and compare two dimensions of employment during the transition to adulthood: 1) the number of cumulative years/months of employment, and 2) the number of years/months of continuous employment. For this purpose, I analyze three nationally representative longitudinal and retrospective datasets, and focus on the experiences of women born in the 1970s or later in Mexico, Chile, and the U.S. The results confirm the relevance of women’s employment engagement on decisions toward moving in with a romantic partner for the first time, highlighting differences between the two employment dimensions, as well as between contexts. By contrasting cumulative and continuous employment, the dissertation contributes to our understanding of why and how women’s employment shapes union formation. It also invites us to expand theories about the interplay between women’s economic position and family from a comparative perspective. Given the increasing uncertainty of labor markets, it also motivates further exploration about the role of expectations and experiences of continuous employment on family transitions.Item Rethinking marriage metabolism: The declining frequency of marital events in the United States(Population Research and Policy Review, 2023) Cohen, Philip N.Previous research has used the concept of marriage metabolism to represent churning in the marriage system, but the measurements used to date have been inadequate. This paper addresses changes in the incidence of marital events in the United States from 2008 to 2021. I offer a measure, the Total Rate of Marital Events (TRME), of the projected lifetime experience of marital transitions (marriage, divorce, and widowhood) for life table cohorts. I find that the TRME declined steeply over this relatively short period: 22% for men and 19% for women. All three components declined in every age group below 90. The decline in divorce was most pronounced. More accurately than the term "retreat from marriage," I describe the slowing churn of the marriage system as reflecting the diminished social presence of marriage in daily life. Rather than a retreat, this coincides with the increasingly selective status of married life. A higher status marriage system is a smaller, slower, and more stable marriage system.Item Growing Uncertainty in Marriage Expectations among U.S. Youth(Socius, 2024-03-26) Cohen, Philip N.; Pepin, Joanna R.Marriage rates are falling in the United States. The authors ask whether today's young adults are likely to continue this trend. Using Monitoring the Future Public-Use Cross-Sectional Datasets (1976-2022), this visualization presents U.S. 12th graders' marriage expectations. It shows declining optimism that they will be "very good" spouses and declining expectations that they will eventually marry. Both trends are prominent in the last 10 years of the survey, and both are more dramatic among young women than among young men. If these trends hold, it may foretell further declines in marriage rates in the coming years.Item EPIDEMIOLOGICAL TRANSITION AND SHIFTING MORTALITY INEQUALITY: AN EXTENSION OF FUNDAMENTAL CAUSE THEORY(2023) Ruan, Hangqing; Kahn, Joan JK; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The dissertation addresses two "public health puzzles" in US mortality inequality trends: (1) SES inequalities in mortality have been growing wider despite declines in overall mortality levels and the expansion of social welfare policies; (2) mortality inequalities present diverging trends across age groups, with declines at younger ages but growth at older ages. These puzzles challenge existing theories in explaining the complex dynamics of mortality disparities. The study aims to bridge this gap by proposing an alternative theoretical framework that combines Fundamental Cause Theory with the concept of epidemiological transition.Previous research has focused primarily on socioeconomic factors as the main drivers of widening mortality disparities. However, this dissertation argues that mortality inequalities can evolve independently of socioeconomic factors due to shifts in disease patterns towards non-communicable diseases and advancements in health-beneficial innovations. By analyzing county-level US mortality rates from 1968 to 2020, this study reveals that mortality inequality related to infectious diseases declined in the early 1970s and remained stable over time. On the other hand, mortality inequality related to non-communicable diseases remained at a low level during the 1970s but saw a significant increase since the 1980s. Further, this study found that mortality inequality from non-communicable diseases is more pronounced in middle-aged and older adults, and the age distribution of mortality inequality progressively shifts towards older ages. This study contributes to the existing literature with a new theoretical perspective to understand the developments of mortality inequalities over time. This framework sheds light on the two "public health puzzles” and emphasizes the crucial role of disease patterns prevailing during specific historical periods in understanding the developments of mortality inequality. Furthermore, the study underlines the interplay of disease patterns, prevention/treatment innovations, and social and economic inequalities in collectively shaping the future of mortality and health disparities. It also sheds light on the social-political circumstances of medical innovation as well as behavioral factors over the life course in determining future population health and health inequalities.Item African-Americans and African-English-Speaking West Indians: Relationships Between Racial Identity Attitudes, Self-Attitudes, Self-Esteem, Skin Color Perceptions and Sex-Role Attitudes(1994) Murray-Carney, Melita Josephine; Fretz, Bruce; Psychology; Digital Repository and the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)This study examined the relationship of racial identity attitudes to skin color perceptions, sex-role attitudes and self-esteem among 106 African-Americans and 102 African-English speaking West Indians. Skin color perceptions were measured by Helms and Carter's (in press) skin color scale and the present author's (1992) skin color chart. Sex-role attitudes were measured by the Bem's Sex-role Inventory and self-esteem by the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale respectively. It was hypothesized that differentially statistically significant relationships would be found among racial identity attitudes, skin color perceptions, sex-role attitudes and self-esteem for African-Americans and African-West Indians . For African-Americans , the results indicated racial identity was associated with self-esteem but was not related to skin color perceptions or sex-role attitudes when gender was controlled. For African-English speaking West Indians, racial identity was associated with sex-role attitudes but was not related to either skin color perceptions or self esteem. Additional exploratory results pointed to a need to include other variables such as socioeconomic status and education in understanding more about racial identity attitudes of African-Americans and African-English speaking West Indians. Research and counseling implications for African-Americans and African-English speaking West Indians are discussed.Item Investigating regional food hubs as tools for development and change: A multi-scale and mixed methods approach(2017) Motzer, Nicole; Silva, Julie A; Geography; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The revitalization of rural, agricultural communities in the United States represents a constant challenge. Persistently high levels of rural poverty stem in part from agricultural industrialization, the subsequent loss of family farms, and dwindling rural economies. Theoretically integrating economic viability, social justice, and environmental sustainability back into agriculture and food, alternative food networks (AFNs) represent opportunities for rural communities to redress social, economic, and environmental declines accompanying agricultural industrialization in the twentieth and twenty–first centuries. As organizations that aggregate, market, and distribute locally and regionally sourced food within wholesale, retail, and institutional markets, regional food hubs (RFHs) represent the most recent AFN type, but also the one most associated with advancing rural revitalization and agricultural change. An overall lack of empirical investigation, however, along with limited conceptualizations of development constrains current understandings as to how – or even if – RFHs contribute to rural development in the ways that are increasingly espoused in the literature and policy. With a focus on RFHs as rapidly expanding yet largely untested AFNs, this dissertation follows a mixed methods and multi–scale approach. Blending quantitative analyses at national and regional scales with qualitative case study data, this dissertation explores development–related potential and processes for RFHs in a variety of places and then empirically evaluates rural development outcomes in a theoretically ideal setting. Findings indicate that RFHs generally do not locate where outcomes are most likely to reflect rural development expectations, though to spatially varying degrees. When a RFH does locate in such a place, outcomes are primarily though not always positive, and overall suggest that RFHs can help to fill social, economic, and ecological gaps and needs. Results reveal that women farmers play integral roles in shaping and extending RFHs’ development impacts. Yet, persistent poverty and geographically concentrated disadvantages limit transformative capacities. Reigning in rural development claims, this dissertation concludes that although RFHs are unlikely to redress broad conditions of rural decline, they may prime rural, agricultural communities in ways that extend both the efficacy and reach of policies and interventions to follow.Item Human Trafficking on the International and Domestic Agendas: Examining the Role of Transnational Advocacy Networks Between Thailand and United States(2008-05-23) Bertone, Andrea Marie; Schreurs, Miranda; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Thai activists, nonstate organizations, and transnational networks have been involved in trying to influence the Thai and international anti-trafficking agendas through their involvement with transnational and domestic advocacy networks since the early 1980s. Despite significant activism against human trafficking and related issues in Thailand throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the U.S. government and the broader international community did not seriously begin paying attention to human trafficking until the late 1990s. It was not until 2000 that both the U.S. government and the United Nations developed significant anti-trafficking policies. Why did it take until 2000 for the international community, including the U.S. government and many U.S.-based nonstate actors, to put the issue of trafficking on their political agendas, despite the fact that Thai-based nonstate actors and other Asian activists had been advocating for a response for nearly two decades? When the U.S. and the international community did finally put this issue on their agendas, how did Thai-based nonstate actors respond to international and U.S. styles of agenda-setting in Thailand? The issue of human trafficking has been put on the national political agendas in both the United States and Thailand; however, the issue took very different paths on its way to the agenda in each country. In the case of Thailand, we can find Thai activists working on related issues since the early 1980s, connecting and networking domestically and transnationally to advocate for a governmental response to complex international problems. In the case of the United States, an unlikely coalition of conservatives and feminist abolitionists has clashed with human rights organizations with regard to framing and defining human trafficking. One argument of this dissertation is that the emergence and operation of domestic and transnational advocacy networks have been instrumental in framing human trafficking in such a way to keep the issue on the national political agendas of the United States and Thailand. The primary drivers of the transnational advocacy networks are nonstate actors, and they have played key roles in spotlighting this issue, networking with one another, and interacting with governments in creative ways to address human trafficking.Item Sheathing the Sword of Damocles: Assessing Al Qaeda and Devising a US Response(2007-12-18) McGrath, Kevin; Schreurs, Miranda; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Al Qaeda killed over 3,000 US citizens on September 11, 2001, and terrorism leapt to the fore of US strategic and political priorities. Yet, after nearly six year of concerted effort by the United States, the dominant power in the international system, Al Qaeda survives and is still acknowledged as a potent threat. This begs the question not just of why, but of what the United States can do to redress the situation. This dissertation seeks answers by examining the four key aspects of Al Qaeda that enable it function as a successful terrorist entity - strategy, organization, financing, and politics. These factors area analyzed relative to the dynamics of the phenomenon of terrorism in the US-Al Qaeda struggle. For each variable, Al Qaeda's perspective and efforts, as well as the perspective and efforts of the United States, are scrutinized. This dissertation assesses Al Qaeda is primarily a political threat, not a military one. Terrorists subvert legitimate political processes to achieve political ends. Al Qaeda challenges not only specific US political decisions, but also the very nature of the US political system, a classical liberal democracy, and the nature of the US-created post World War II international order. The character of the US political response is critical. As such, this dissertation concludes that US efforts to combat such a threat cannot be limited solely to a hard power approach. Such a component must be present in US strategy, for it alone directly degrades Al Qaeda's capacity for violence, the source of its power. The US approach must, however, include a greater emphasis on the US-Al Qaeda struggle's political dimension. The political aspect both drives the conflict and frames its execution, thus shaping the possible outcomes in both the near and far term. Fortunately, as the leader of the international system, the United States is in a position to politically undercut Al Qaeda. The United States can do so by adhering to globally revered traditional US political values and foreign policy emphases - the rule of law, a participatory political system emphasizing the importance of international institutions, and democratic values, such as human rights - in not just the execution, but also the formulation of US policy. The potential impact is significant. Internally, manipulating the US-Al Qaeda struggle's political dimension in accordance with traditional US values can weaken Al Qaeda's internal cohesion. Externally, the United States can narrow Al Qaeda's room for maneuver by depriving it of political support, thus strategically degrading Al Qaeda's operational capability. In the process, the United States will also stunt the terrorism process's subversive effects on the United States' political character. In short, addressing the US-Al Qaeda struggle's political dimension in a manner consistent with traditional US political values ensures US political integrity while also yielding national advantage.Item Ten Years of Dealing with Kim Jong Il: Can Negotiations Ensure Conflict Resolution?(2006-08-07) Grzelczyk, Virginie; Schreurs, Miranda; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study investigates the tumultuous negotiation relationship between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the United States, from Kim Jong Il's accession to power in 1994 to the historic but short-lived September 19, 2005 agreement. The purpose of this work is to gain understanding regarding North Korea's negotiation strategies, in order to bring contributions to the literature on negotiation, rogue states, and Northeast Asia. The literature lacks a clear understanding of how North Korea has been operating since 1994, at which time Kim Il Sung passed away and power was assumed by his son, Kim Jong Il. Gaining a clear understanding of what has happened under the Kim Jong Il Administration leads to the construction of a comprehensive analysis of all the different bilateral and multilateral negotiation episodes that have occurred between the United States and North Korea from 1994 to 2005. Those episodes range from such diverse issues as two weeks of bilateral talks to free an American pilot who crashed by accident on North Korea territory in December 1994 to years of nuclear talks). This research is qualitative in nature and based on archival and media resources, as well as interviews conducted with those who served under several different administrations in the United States and in Korea, Japan, and China, as well as scholars, politicians and negotiators. The study concludes that there is a distinctive North Korean negotiation strategy, but that this strategy is increasing in complexity and is highly dependent on the United States' position in the world. North Korea is also revealed as a strategic, non-random player that will only rarely compromise on its red line.Item An Examination of Factors that Distinguish Groups of Young Adult Ecstasy Users(2006-04-27) Levy, Kira Beth; O'Grady, Kevin E.; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study examined Ecstasy use in 322 young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 years who participated in an Internet study regarding their history of substance use. The primary goal of this study was to increase our understanding of what factors differentiate between different 'types' of Ecstasy users. Specifically, this study examined potential factors that distinguish between young adults who experiment with the use of Ecstasy and then quit ("Experimenters"); become active users of Ecstasy and continue use ("Users"); and become active users of Ecstasy and then quit ("Quitters"). In addition, a non-ecstasy using polydrug using group served as a "Control" group. The following primary outcome variables were examined: age of first use of Ecstasy; patterns of Ecstasy consumption; Ecstasy use by peers; levels of social conformity, sensation seeking, risk appraisal, and risky behaviors; motivations for initial use of Ecstasy; motivations for continued use of Ecstasy; psychological addiction to Ecstasy; testing of Ecstasy pills; use of 5-HTP and vitamins; reasons reported by non-Ecstasy users for lack of experimentation with Ecstasy; and, general knowledge and beliefs about Ecstasy. Results indicated that Ecstasy Users (Experimenters, Users, and Quitters) were similar in the following characteristics: history of polydrug use; social conformity; sensation-seeking; appraisal of risky activities; history of engaging in risky activities; and self-report of reasons for first using Ecstasy. In addition, findings revealed the following characteristics to be distinguishing factors among the three groups (Users, Experimenters, and Quitters): extent of polydrug use; age of first use of ecstasy; patterns of ecstasy use; number of peers who currently use Ecstasy; and reasons for continued use of ecstasy. Notably, all of the participants in this study self-reported polydrug use, and Users were found to be significantly more likely to report having used a greater number of substances during the past 90 days than Experimenters, Quitters, and Controls. Furthermore, results suggest that young adults who have peers who use Ecstasy are at great risk for either the initiation of or continuation of current Ecstasy use. Implications for prevention and intervention are discussed.