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The article assesses affiliation, loss of affiliation, and the associated effects on homeless individuals in Florida. The hypotheses of the article are based on differences in expected locus of control and self-esteem, by gender and parental status. Women generally are socialized to be more affiliative than men, and having responsibility for one or more dependent children increases the importance of social contacts for homeless women. It hypothesize that homeless women have higher rates of affiliation than homeless men, and homeless women accompanied by dependent children have the highest levels of affiliation. Another result of differential childhood socialization is the greater social acceptance of dependency for women than for men. Homeless people are, by definition, in a state of dependency. The women accompanied by children maintained more family contacts and had higher levels of self-esteem; for that group, locus of control was more external than for either the unaccompanied women or the unaccompanied men. Women with children also had the lowest median number of days homeless and the highest average monthly incomes.

There are three essential elements in the job-change process:1) reasons for quitting the previous job;2) unemployment between jobs; and 3) job search strategy in getting the present job. Of these three, job search has most often been the topic of prior sociological research. Using earnings as an indicator of job quality, I find that job-quit type is a more important factor than job-search type, and continuity of employment between jobs is a better predictor than either of these. There are variations by gender. Women report quitting for personal reasons much more often than men, but are similar to other women in present earnings. Men who quit for personal reasons are in the lowest present-pay group. Both women and men suffer earnings penalties when unemployed between jobs, but females' penalties are greater. Overall, the best outcomes are found for workers who are able to maximize their job-change choices by securing a new job before the job-quit and having no break in employment between jobs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]