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Sleep duration has figured into claims of two trends promoted recently as dysfunctional in the mass media. One is the observation that the population at large is sleeping less than before. The second is that the annual change from Standard Time to Daylight Savings (or summer) Time causes adverse effects, largely through the loss of an hour's sleep. This paper relies on recent Canadian and U.S. time-use data to empirically test both of these value-laden allegations. Analysis of Statistics Canada's general social surveys containing time-use information in 1986, 1992, 1998, and 2005 shows that the mean duration of sleep was unchanged between 1986 and 1998 and actually declined by about 15 min a night in 2005, reflecting an earlier bedtime and unchanged arising time. Sleep duration is not constant in the population, though, and the media view might reflect the habits of population sectors such as the intelligence with great access to the media. The American Time Use Study sample of 20,720 respondents in 2003 enabled the analysis of time-use before, on, and after the dates of semi-annual time changes that year. These data showed that any sleep time 'lost' in the spring-forward time change was insignificant and short-lived due to the fact that it occurred on the night between Saturday and Sunday, when people typically sleep much longer than on weekdays. While there are other time trade-offs observed after time changes, their explanation lies in other directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shifting focus from income to capability signifies an important milestone toward accurately measuring poverty and deprivation. This paper operationalizes capability deprivation in the United States and compares measurement outcomes among various capability approaches and between capability and income spaces. Of the three capability approaches examined, the factor score absolute approach suggests a greater extent of deprivation and more comprehensive demographic profiles of the deprived. Additionally, I find that using the capability space may further attenuate the extent of deprivation over that using the income space and alter somewhat the stereotypical profiles of the poor and deprived. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses recent data on U.S. children from the National Survey of America’s Families (NSAF) to create indices that tally the number of problems or risks that individual children experience. We compare results with those from indices developed elsewhere that assess the change across sets of population-level indicators. While the two types of indices show similar trends over time, specific changes, as well as trends, depend on the specific domain of well-being or context examined, highlighting the importance of the distinction between well-being and context. Children with problems in multiple domains tend to be socio-economically and demographically disadvantaged compared with other children. We preface this work by providing an overview of the history of child well-being indicators and distinguish indices of child well-being from indices of the condition of children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use data from the 2002 wave of the National Survey of America’s Families to develop and validate discrete measures of material hardship that can be used to examine the difficulties that vulnerable populations such as people with disabilities have in making ends meet. Using latent class analysis, we estimate two measurement models: multidimensional and omnibus. The multidimensional model provides separate estimates for food, medical, and housing and utilities hardship. The omnibus model is a single model of 11 hardship indicators. Results show three distinct classes of food hardship, three classes of medical hardship, and two classes of housing/utilities hardship. The omnibus model reveals eight classes. Both the multidimensional and omnibus models are largely invariant between women with disabilities and women without disabilities, indicating that valid comparisons can be made between these populations using these classes of hardship. These classes can be utilized in further research on the hardship of women with disabilities to inform the development of policies targeted to alleviate the specific forms of hardship experienced by disabled women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]