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This study was run with 303 male children aged 11-15 and registered to Ankara Metropolitan Municipality Center for Children Working on the Streets. The data were collected through a questionnaire and evaluated by using SPSS 11.5 for Windows. The average age of children working on the streets was 13.18±1.51. According to body mass index, 63.7% of the children had normal body weight. Further, 97.0% of the children were living with their parents and while 85.1% was attending school, 0.7% had never been to school. The foremost work that these children were doing on the streets was sell bagels (47.5%). It was found that 58.4% had three meals a day, 76.6% skipped meals, and mostly lunch (43.5%). Not wanting to eat (49.6%) ranked the first among the reasons for skipping meals. The percentage of children who reported to smoke was 6.6%. As these children in their developmental ages are the individuals to shape the future of the society, their nutrition should be taken more seriously and they should have an adequate and balanced diet without skipping any meals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Working-class mobilization has been neither the sole nor a necessary factor for welfare state formation in advanced industrial countries, yet in all others the working classes did mobilize for a welfare state (independent of their degrees of success), and hence the question of the failure of the US working classes to do so calls for explanation. This paper weighs historical-sociological, political-cultural and state-structural explanations of workers? failure to mobilize politically for a redistributive welfare state in the US. It finds that working-class consciousness did not develop strongly in the US, both because individual, ethnic and religious identities were most often stronger than class identities (and capitalist elites were effective at manipulating these identity-based divisions), and because class identities per se were antithetical to US political culture. Moreover, not only was working-class consciousness weak; attempts at political engagement for redistributive goals were impeded by formidable institutional mobilization hurdles. For these reasons, US workers only rarely and weakly fought for social citizenship rights or redistribution, and when they did, lacked the strength to overcome mobilization hurdles. Instead, they supported non-redistributive elite policies aimed at the welfare goals of securing individual economic opportunity (through low taxes, weak labor and environmental regulation and aggressive foreign economic policy), individual self-sufficiency (through high rates of labor-market participation und denial of aid to the ?undeserving? poor), decent living standards for the ?deserving? poor (through homesteads, Aid to Dependent Children, EITC), and retirement security (through Veterans? Pensions, Social Security and Medicare). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The after-school hours often pose difficulties for working parents and their children. This paper concentrates on children ages 10 to 14 an age range when there are few formal care programs available. Based on qualitative interviews with children and their parents, this paper explores the experience of self-care for 10-14-year-old children and it examines how children view their own after-school time and orchestrate their own lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exploratory quantitative study uses stratification theory to examine the effect of micro-level and macro-level factors on conflicts between work and family for women of color and white women. Using GSS data, the authors explore women?s individual characteristics, human capital factors, and social structure to try to understand the number and type of conflicts working women experience. Data analysis shows that women of color were much more likely than white women to be in one-earner households; conversely, white women were much more likely to be in two-earner households. Evidence of a race-segregated labor force also emerged. Regression analysis suggests that predictive factors for number and type of conflicts women experience are different for women of color than for white women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the relationship between hourly wages and regional and ethnic concentration among Mexican American women. In particular, the focus is on Mexican Americans in the Southwest regions of the United States. The paper asks whether the reasons for the minority wage differentials can be traced to individual characteristics, to characteristics of the regions, or to differences in ethnic concentration. With a theoretical model incorporating human capital, regional, and ethnic concentration factors, the question is addressed using data from the, 1990 Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS). For comparative purposes, the paper presents analysis for African American women and Anglo women. The results provide evidence for the importance of place of residence, Mexican American women residing in areas of heavy Mexican American concentration in the Southwest, in which they have lower hourly wages than their Mexican American counterparts living in other regions. Finally, a ?cost of being a minority? analysis indicates that African American women in these areas forego approximately $2.83 per hour of wages because of their race, whereas Mexican American women forego $1.30 per hour because of their ethnicity. The paper concludes with a discussion of the results and policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the case of the gender equal employment opportunity policy in Japan, I intend to examine the relationship between legal reforms and attitudinal changes. Even as the low fertility rate is an urgent issue in Japan today, the state has implemented policies designed to increase women?s employment ? policies which may well fuel further fertility decline. Women?s participation in the formal labor market is becoming extremely important in Japan today. Does Japan resolve the issue of traditional gender roles which interacts with recent social challenges ? employed mothers, fertility decline, shortage of labor force, and immigration? When and how do attitudes toward women?s employment transform to international norms? There is a contradiction between legal reforms and gender role expectations in contemporary Japan. Diffusion of international legal norms explains why such a contradiction, or decoupling, is present; it is internationally normative that modern nation-states have a gender equal employment opportunity law. My research focuses on how the relationship between legal reforms and attitudinal changes shifted over time. I intend to delve into the process of legal reforms and social norm transformation in Japan since the 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The working poor represent a growing portion of the American laborforce. While some of these workers are former TANF (Temporary Aid to Needy Families) recipients who have ?timed out? of welfare benefits, many have never been on the country?s welfare rolls. These workers lack social supports such as healthcare, childcare and reliable transportation, and lack access to training and educational opportunities to improve their lives. As a result then although the working poor barely survive economically they have fallen from our country?s radar screen. Clearly a new perspective on welfare reform and workforce development needs to be advanced that takes into account the needs of the working poor. This paper presents findings from a New Jersey initiative that attempted to address some of the needs of the working poor by piloting an innovative state program throughout the One Stop Career Centers. This program provided training and education to 128 single working mothers, all of whom earned less than 250 percent of the poverty level. The participants received computers, Internet access and online courses to improve their skills. This paper will detail some of the findings, and elucidate the importance of providing social supports and training opportunities to the working poor in new and flexible ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online learning plays a significant role in addressing and eliminating many barriers single working poor mothers face in attaining skills training. Significantly, online learning provides flexibility that allows individuals to fit skills training into their schedules- taking classes at any hour or any day of the week. Further, online learning is cost-effective, saving the individual money and time in childcare and commuting. However in order to employ online learning for single working poor mothers, it is critical to employ a gendered lens and framework in order to understand not only the effective ways of using online learning for this population, but also to ensure that the technology itself does not serve a barrier to advancement for the women. In this paper I investigate how online learning is a potential venue to provide skills training to working poor single mothers, using data I collected from a program piloted by the New Jersey Department of Labor. In addition, I demonstrate the importance of government and other training organizations to attend to gender when implementing these programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay attempts to engage the category of the modern working-class and attempts to examine the theoretical/historical bases for its exclusive identification with the wage-labor form. As such, this essay traces the evolution of the category of labor as first conceptualized by 19th-century political economy (Smith, Ricardo, Marx). It then attempts to reconcile non-wage-labor forms (slave-labor) with a concept of the working-class in an effort to re-conceptualize the working-class as a category of social analysis better able to capture the complexities of marginalized labor forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does the combined working time of dual-earner couples affect the work-family conflict of men and women in these relationships? Does this effect vary by family life stage? This study draws on data from the 1997 National Study of the Changing Workforce to answer these questions. I find that work-family conflict increases among men and women as the couple?s joint hours of paid labor rises. Furthermore, women, but not men, are affected by the ratio of their own employment hours to those of their husbands. Finally, parents report significantly higher levels of work-family conflict than do non-parents; I find some evidence that this effect varies by the age of the youngest child in the home. Future research using couples as the unit of analysis and longitudinally examining families over the life course is suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines changes in employment following the birth of a woman?s first child. The results of these analyses will shed light on the strategies women adopt in order to balance their work and family commitments. In particular, the authors predict the likelihood of women returning to their pre-birth employer, and of changing their post-birth work hours, skill level, or pay. This research draws on prior studies by the authors (Downs and Smith 2001; Smith, Downs, and O?Connell 2001), that examined the types of leave women used while caring for their newborn child and the length of time they were away from the labor force after the first birth. The present research compares women who return to their pre-birth employers with women who switch to a new employer. These comparisons will enhance our understanding of the many ways which women adjust their work schedules upon becoming mothers. The paper takes the following form. First, we describe general trends in maternity leave length and types of leave used, since the 1960s. We then use this information to predict the likelihood of changing employers after the birth. Next, we study which women adjust their work circumstances, in terms of hours worked, skill level, or pay. This allows us to determine which women (?same employer? or ?different employer?) adjust their work circumstances more often. The results of these analyses shed light on the factors that best predict variability in labor force behavior after the first birth. Women are increasingly likely to spend a short amount of time away from the labor force at the time of their first birth. What does this mean for the career-family juggling act? Most working women, 77 percent-, do not change employers upon becoming mothers. And most of those women return to jobs just like (or the same as) the ones they had before giving birth. For these women, the juggling act takes place outside the workplace. However, nearly a quarter of first-time mothers change their employer post-birth, and most of those women change at least one aspect of their working conditions. Many of these women work more hours, earn more money, or increase their job skills. However, we question how often, and through which pathways, some women reduce their skill and pay levels in order to work fewer hours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of minority mental health have been largely limited to African American and Hispanic groups. Asian Americans' distress issues are relatively neglected. Moreover, sociological studies examining the association between work and mental health primarily focus on how employment status (employed or unemployed) and the nature of work (e.g., job control, autonomy, or complexity) affect psychological wellbeing. The factors of working relations and experiences remain under-explored. This study, therefore, aims to fill these gaps by exploring Taiwanese Americans' social relations with co-workers, their experiences of racial discrimination and sexist treatment at workplace, and how their mental health is influenced by these working relations and experiences. An attempt of avoiding homogenizing this ethnic group is made by exploring gender and generational differences among informants. 54 in-depth interviews were conducted in the Chicago metropolitan area in 2001. Three major findings include: 1) Taiwanese Americans tended to separate their family life from working relations, a trend that was the opposite of the working culture in their society of origin. Men were found to be more alienated at workplace than their female counterparts, so were first-generation immigrants than their children. (2) Respondents, especially first-generation men, reported more experiences of racial discrimination and consequent distress than sexist treatment. (3) Men and women reacted to work-related distress differently, but no significant generational difference was found. While men tend to normalize problems, women are inclined to stand up for their own right when encountering unfair treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American mothers of preschoolers are increasingly more likely to work (Casper 1997). While many studies have examined the effect of family care-giving responsibilities on maternal workforce participation, this literature has not fully addressed the trade-offs for parents of children with disability. Mothers of these children may face greater care-giving tasks, making them more likely to stay out of the paid labor market. At the same time, these families face increased financial burdens, encouraging labor force participation. This paper will explore whether mothers have different workforce participation trajectories after the birth of a child with or without disability. The following analyses examine differences in the rate at which mothers re-enter the labor force after the birth of a child, as well as their exit from paid employment after a birth. Matched records from the 1993 National Health Interview Survey and the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth provide a unique opportunity to investigate the effects of child disability on the workforce participation of mothers using event history techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exploratory quantitative study uses stratification theory to examine the effect of micro-level and macro-level factors on conflicts between work and family for women of color and white women. Using GSS data, the authors explore women's individual characteristics, human capital factors, and social structure to try to understand the number and type of conflicts working women experience. Data analysis shows that women of color were much more likely than white women to be in one-earner households; conversely, white women were much more likely to be in two-earner households. Evidence of a race-segregated labor force also emerged. Regression analysis suggests that predictive factors for number and type of conflicts women experience are different for women of color than for white women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociologists debate the nature of reciprocity, but agree that it greases the wheels of human interaction. Building on the frameworks of Sahlins and Gouldner, this article theoretically explores the staging of reciprocity by white working parents in the networks they have formed to care for their school-age children. In-depth, multi-class case studies in Northern California illustrate that relations within each network operate by a culturally specific logic of reciprocity that is premised on moral obligation. Perceptions of value prove fundamental to the social construction of fairness and balance. Members of these care-giving networks navigate structural constraints, assess each other?s commitments, needs, intentions, and capacities in light of their own, and experience the impact of reciprocity ? and its limitations ? in caring for their school-age children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The share of women in working life is growing all around the world. As an extention of this case, in a similar manner it has increased the rates of women in working life in Turkey. In the worldwide, women are considered clearly as the indicators of following things: - values of their societies, - their cultures, - socio-economic levels - moreover the level of development of societies. In all societies women are faced with different problems in working life. According to the principle of equality, there is equal treatment obligation to all employees without considering gender differencies. According to the rule of "zero tolerance" at the point of women discrimination, all employees should have equal rights without gender discrimination in working life. With The Occupational Health and Safety Act Number of 6331, in Turkey, it has entered to a new period of restructuring in these areas recently. What has brought this law for women in Turkey that the share of women in working life is no longer at all levels should not be underestimated? The aim of this study is to evaluate the issues of occupational health and safety of women who face with them in working life then it is to browse relative articles of number of 6331 law about this subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

General Social Survey National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago Presenter: Tom W. Smith, National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago, 1155 East 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637; phone: (773) 256-6288; fax: (773) 753-7886; email: smitht@norc.uchicago.edu; homepage: http://www.norc.uchicago.edu/. The General Social Survey (GSS) of the National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago, monitors social change in the United States. Since 1972, the GSS has gathered data on contemporary American society in order to monitor and explain trends and constants in attitudes, behaviors, and attributes of the adult population. These high quality data are easily accessible to a broad-based user community, including researchers, teachers in colleges and universities, students at undergraduate and graduate levels, business and corporate planners, journalists, and public officials who need to understand the pulse of our country in their work. The 24 national probability samples include interviews of over 43,000 respondents. Of the 4,220 items that have been asked, there are time trends for over 1,000 items. Two recent developments regarding the GSS are featured--the GSS Data and Information Retrieval System II (GSSDIRS) and the 2002 GSS. The GSSDIRS II is a new web product that links together code book, trends, bibliography, project reports, and other documentation; permits on-line analysis and data sub-setting; and provides the latest information via an announcement section, and contact with the GSS staff. The 2002 GSS contains supplements on religion, sexual behavior, internet and computer use, intergroup relations, transition to adulthood, quality of working life, worker compensation, and altruism and empathy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the western industrial world, changes in work and family roles of both women and men have resulted in pressure to change the terms of the social contract between men and women. The sociological theory that best explains the change is "adaptive upgrading," which Talcott Parsons (1966) identified as a master trend in the evolution of modern societies and Miriam Johnson (1989) showed was also evident in the emergence of feminism. This paper reviews actual changes in the life patterns of women and men in Europe, Britain, and the United States as documented by an international group of social scientists at a 2001 conference held in Berlin (Giele and Holst 2003). Four pervasive and related trends in changing gender roles correspond with the Parsons-Johnson formulation: (1) adaptation--greater flexibility in working times and life schedules; (2) goal differentiation--greater choice in what men and women can do; (3) inclusion and integration--greater inclusion of the opposite sex in what used to be solely male or female spheres; and (4) value generalization?extension of the value of care activities to men's roles as well as the value of productivity to women's roles. By noting this correspondence between the massive changes in gender roles and the great sociological theory of structural differentiation, sociologists' future research can not only better interpret the underlying interconnections between disparate contemporary events but also perceive the most promising paths for future change and show their relevance to social policy. Janet Z. Giele and Elke Holst (Eds.), 2003. New Life Patterns and the Changing Gender Contract. Chapter 1 in Changing Work and Life Patterns in Western Industrial Societies. Vol. 8 of Advances in Life Course Research. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science. In press. Johnson, M. M. (1989). Feminism and the theories of Talcott Parsons. In R. A. Wallace (Ed.), Feminism and Sociological Theory (pp. 101-118). Newbury Park, CA: [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using interviews and secondary data, this paper examines the changing relations of culture, ethnicity and class four years after the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) of 1998. Even as solid majorities in all communities of the six counties welcome the decline in inter-communal violence, the GFA has also brought about a deepening of sectarian divide for the people of Northern Ireland. Furthermore, thus far, the primary benefactors of the new political dispensation in Ireland have been the middle classes (both Catholic and Protestant) leaving the working class and poor of both communities ghettoized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]