Over $5 billion in child support went unpaid in 1989 alone. One fourth of the 10 million custodial mothers eligible for child support are currently married. This study uses both reports of child support payment from noncustodial fathers and reports of child support receipt made by custodial mothers to examine the impact of current marital status on the payment of child support. The data are from the Survey of Income and Program Participation. Findings indicate that if either parent is currently married, less child support is paid. Policy implications depend upon how this result is interpreted. Noncompliance with a child support award indicates increased award enforcement is needed. Underlying the compliance issue, however, is how to distribute parental incomes equitably after second families are formed.
Belief in a just world is associated with an expectation that individuals can determine their own rewards and punishments rather than being at the mercy of external forces (Rotter, 1966). Believers in a just world are likely to view victims as responsible for their fates. An experimental design was used to test the effect of victim clothing, just-world belief, and sex of subject on attributions concerning sexual harassment. A convenience sample of 200 subjects (97 males, 102females, 1 information missing) was used in a 2 (provocative vs. nonprovocative clothing) × 2 (believers vs. nonbelievers) × 2 (sex of subject) between-subjects factorial design. The subjects read a vignette that described a claim of sexual harassment, viewed a photograph of the victim, and made attributions reflecting blame by responding to four items. Subjects also indicated the likelihood that a male supervisor would engage in each of eight sexually harassing behaviors. Multivariate analyses of variance, analyses of variance, and the Newman-Keuls test were used to analyze the data. Subjects indicated that the victim appearing in provocative clothing, as opposed to the victim in nonprovocative clothing, could have prevented the incident, provoked the advances, and brought about the advances. Female subjects indicated that a male supervisor was more likely to engage in sexually harassing behaviors than did male subjects. Subjects also indicated a female appearing in provocative clothing was more likely to be the recipient of sexually harassing behavior than a female in nonprovocative clothing.
The major purpose of this study was to describe undergraduate students' experiences and perceptions of home economics and to work with students to produce a description of those experiences and their relevance to an integrative home economics perspective. Data were gathered through semistructured individual interviews with a purposive sample of 14 seniors in a college of home economics at a large midwestern university. Findings indicated that students' perceptions of home economics ranged from female gender role expectations in early childhood to a currently functioning integrative perspective.