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This article evaluates the efficiency of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act in eliminating welfare and poverty. Topics include cash assistance, welfare reform, and economic stabilization.

This article explores paradigm shifts in family sociology from the 1960s to the 1990s using a thematic content analysis of 7 multiple-edition texts. Two competing views on theoretical developments are examined. David Cheal claims that challenges posed to structural functionalist hegemony resulted in theoretical pluralism and an end to this hegemony. Dorothy Smith argues that Parsons's theoretical assumptions are so deeply embedded in the discourse of family sociology that they continue to govern major issues and debates. As late as the 1990s, we found that structural functionalism continued to frame many topics and debates in the majority of texts even when new concepts and more critical literature were added. Notable exceptions were textbook treatments of African American families and gender issues. This suggests that the relative success of social movements in institutionalizing their goals may be an important factor in determining paradigm shifts., Recent sociology has witnessed a growing interest in what Ritzer (1992) has labeled metatheoretical concerns. Among these concerns is the extent to which the perspectives employed by sociologists can be [...]

Describes an empirical method to identify work-similar occupations using selected measures from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. Examines male-female earnings differences within a group of work-similar occupations and finds that discrimination against females is extensive. (Author/CH)

This paper compares a model of labor supply for female heads of household, male heads, and wives. Not only have female-headed households increased significantly as a proportion of all households in recent years, but these households are also more likely to be in poverty than are other households. Yet, the determinants of labor supply for this increasingly important demographic group still are largely unknown. Analyses are performed on a sample of employed female and male heads and wives from the 1976 Survey of Income and Education. We examine the effects of wages, unearned income, number of children, and several other variables on hours worked per year, allowing for race interactions. We find that female heads and wives are similar in the effects of wages on their labor supply, while female and male heads are similar in the positive effect of children. We conclude that although financial need, as evidenced by low wages and children, increases female heads' labor supply, employment in more advantaged, non-female dominated jobs and core industries is needed to promote their full participation in the labor force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Occupational segregation is, now one of the most popular explanations for the persistent male-female gap in labor market earnings. The fact that females are employed in a fewer number of occupations than males are is intended to "explain" why females' earnings are lower than males. Following Blau and Jusenius (1976), this paper argues that the simple fact of occupational segregation becomes a justification (or male-female inequality since it is just a description of consequence, not causes. A different view is that occupational segregation is a form of discrimination against females, one embedded in the organization of work. The situation at the extremes of occupational segregation supports the second view. In occupations where sex composition is so one-sided that male-female comparisons are impossible, the females earn substantially less than other females and males, and the males earn more than other males. Since these occupations are often excluded from analyses of inequality because of the lack of one sex group or the other, an examination of these occupations is useful; investigations going across occupational categories might be more promising than continuing to inspect productivity differences between individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]