Suchergebnisse

In May 2020, the authors fielded a series of questions on attitudes about recruitment, priorities, and challenges affecting American diplomats to a nationally representative, probability-based sample of 2,026 Americans ages 24 and older. Respondents were participants in RAND's American Life Panel (ALP). In June 2021, the authors re-surveyed 1,829 of the same panel participants asking the same questions, with some wording modifications. Between the two ALP surveys, RAND researchers led 14 online focus groups to ask 118 representative Americans more-detailed questions about the reasons for their views on American diplomacy and diplomats. Focus group members were not taken from the ALP and were balanced by gender, demographic category, education, and region. The authors found generally favorable public opinion attitudes toward American diplomats but also found limited understanding of what diplomats do, how they are selected, and how diplomacy interacts with other elements of America's national security establishment. Survey respondents and focus group participants considered support for American citizens abroad to be a core-and much valued-function for diplomats. Survey respondents and focus group participants were less aware that diplomats abroad have export promotion and business support responsibilities. The authors found worrisome levels of opinion that American diplomats, while trustworthy, were politically biased. The finding that the American public had greater confidence in career ambassadors than political appointees also implies that the public would support reduced politicization of State Department positions. Finally, there was a clear preference for diplomats to lead in foreign policy, as opposed to military leaders

Using data from the first two waves of Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (1993 to 1994), this article examines the role of economic circumstances in cohabitation dissolution through legal marriage or union separation. Data are analyzed using discrete-time event history methods separately for women and men and for each of the competing exits. The results show economic deprivation contributes to union instability; an overall deterioration in household economic circumstances increases the risk of union separation. Conversely, for both cohabiting women and men, an increase in personal earnings raises the likelihood of union separation, indicative of an independence effect. Whereas semiprofessional and skilled women are more likely to dissolve their unions through separation, professional and semi-professional men are more apt to marry their partners. Furthermore, women with incomes below the low-income cut-off point are more likely to separate than women with higher incomes. Implications of these results are discussed.

AbstractExtensive research has shown the positive impact of conditional child benefits on child outcomes. However, there is limited work on the impact of universal child benefit payments on how families spend on child outcomes. Our study explores this issue. This study examined the relationship between child benefit payments on child outcome expenditures using longitudinal data from the Korean National Survey of Tax and Benefit (N = 3681 households) and a household‐ and year‐fixed effects regression model. We found that child benefit payments are positively associated with child outcome expenditures across family income groups. Furthermore, the analysis results suggest that compared to high‐income family groups, low‐ and middle‐income family groups increase spending on child outcome expenditures in response to child benefit payments. Finally, the policy implications of this are discussed.

Since military operations began in Afghanistan and Iraq, lengthy deployments have led to concerns about the vulnerability of military marriages. Yet evaluating military marriages requires some benchmark against which marital outcomes in the military may be compared. These analyses drew from personnel records from the entire male population of the active components of the U.S. military between 1998 and 2005, and from the Current Population Surveys from the same years, to compare the likelihood of being married or divorced between service members and civilians matched on age, racial/ethnic composition, employment status, and education. Results indicate that service members are significantly more likely to be married, but are not more likely to be divorced, than civilians with matched characteristics. These patterns have not changed substantially since the current conflicts began.

Using data from the 1994-95 (Canadian) National Population Health Survey (6,494 women, 5,368 men), we investigated the impact of cohabitation on a range of physical and mental health indicators, controlling for self-selection into cohabitation and other relevant factors. Uncontrolled results indicate that the physical and mental health of cohabitors tends to fall between that of the married and the divorced/separated, widowed, and single/never married. However, when other factors are controlled, health differences between cohabitors and the currently married become nonsignificant. Self-selection, into cohabitation and into marriage, initially appears to play a significant role in accounting for variations in health, but with controls added to the models, selection mostly becomes nonsignificant. We concluded that self-selection at most may explain a small proportion of the variation in health but that protection effects are more likely to explain the positive health advantages of marriage and cohabitation.

"July 1981." ; Includes bibliographical references. ; Mode of access: Internet.

In the aftermath of 9/11, many law enforcement agencies (LEAs) shifted more resources toward developing counterterrorism (CT) and homeland security (HS) capabilities. This volume examines the effects the focus on CT and HS has had on law enforcement since 9/11, including organizational changes, funding mechanisms, how the shift has affected traditional crime-prevention efforts, and an assessment of benefits, costs, and future challenges.