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Abstract: This qualitative study explores the international migration patterns and the family lives of older adults. Informants (N = 54) reported that they came to the United States to help out their grown children with housekeeping, child care, and domestic economizing. They described how they strategically navigated U.S. immigration laws choosing to visit, immigrate, or naturalize in order to balance their ties to the United States and their homeland. Their transnational loyalties sometimes led to lives that did not strictly match their visa categories. There were "permanent" temporary visitors, U.S. permanent residents who maintained a "permanent" home elsewhere, and U.S. citizens who had naturalized in order to spend more time abroad. Implications of the findings for immigration policy and family practice are discussed.

This comment is in response to Frederic L. Pryor (2000). "The Millennium Survey: How Economists View the U.S. Economy in the 21st Century."The American Journal of Economics and Sociology. 59 (January), pp. 3‐33.

U.S. welfare policy is undergoing a philosophical shift resulting in a dramatic legislative overhaul aimed at reducing spending, limiting eligibility, and enhancing the control of states over federal social service programs. To date, lawfully admitted permanent aliens have been treated the same as citizens by a host of federal programs for the poor. New legislation, however, would make noncitizens largely ineligible for public benefits. Programs that serve as a safety net for citizens would be recast as an earned right for noncitizens. This paper examines the implications for elderly aliens, a population that has grown in response to the liberalization of U.S. immigration laws. To assess the impact of changes in eligibility requirements for Supplemental Security Income, the paper focuses on California, the nation's most populous state and a leading destination of immigrants. The feasibility of individual adaptations to loss of benefits‐family support, employment, naturalization, and emigration‐is examined.

Because the wives of highly paid men participate less in the labor force, the earnings of working wives make the distribution of pretax, money income more equal for families than it might otherwise be. Although there is considerable speculation that future developments in women's labor force participation may foster greater inequality, the empirical results are mixed. To assess the impact of women's labor force participation on the distribution of well-being, future research will need to consider the implications of taxes, job-related expenses, fringe benefits, and the value of homemaker services. Future research would also benefit from linking empirical research to an implicit sociological theory of family income-getting—one that recognizes the motivational structure of household decision-making as well as the changing environment that families face. Rising housing costs, poorer economic prospects of young men, and women's higher wage rates, for example, make wives' paychecks more salient, but family dependence on married women's earnings means secondary earners become a less viable way of coping with unemployment.

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Figures and Tables -- Acknowledgments -- About the Authors -- Chapter One. Why Study Housework? -- Chapter Two. Trends in Housework -- Chapter Three. Women's Employment and Housework -- Chapter Four. The Politics of Housework -- Chapter Five. Can State Policies Produce Equality in Housework? -- Chapter Six. Economic Inequality and Housework -- Chapter Seven. Cultural and Institutional Contexts -- Chapter Eight. Beliefs about Maternal Employment -- Chapter Nine. The Institution of Marriage -- Chapter Ten. Pair Relationships and Housework -- Chapter Eleven. Men's and Women's Reports about Housework -- Chapter Twelve. Concluding Thoughts on the Societal Context of Housework -- Index

With innovative cross-national analyses by leading international scholars, Dividing the Domestic extends a rich tradition of sociological research on housework and gender to reveal how a country's culture and policies influence couples' private lives.

Long motivated by microlevel paradigms, the study of housework has been revitalized by research emphasizing macrolevel influences. Common trends and persistent differences across the developed world underscore the importance of country context. Gender specialization, gender equality, and socioeconomic (in)equality are cultural and structural domains that channel domestic behavior in predictable directions. By demonstrating the country‐to‐country differences in the causes and consequences of domestic arrangements, this research points to 5 questions that set a course for studies of housework in comparative context.

As a neglected dimension of the quality of care, assessments of caregiver reliability by older adults receiving help contributes to the better understanding of unmet needs for assistance in everyday life. This study examines how the numbers and composition of helpers – both potential and actual – relate to older Americans' reports of the reliability of assistance. According to the 2008 US National Elder Mistreatment Study (n = 2,176), the potential network, proxied by marital status and household size, was not a significant predictor of unreliable care, nor was the actual number of caregivers. We distinguish four types of helping sources: kin-only; exclusively informal non-kin (eg friends, neighbours); exclusively formal (paid); and mixed type. There was a higher risk of unreliable care among respondents relying exclusively on informal non-kin assistance compared with exclusively kin help. Kin-only provided more reliable care than informal non-kin but were no more reliable than formal or mixed types.

Despite many studies on the gendered division of housework, there is little research on how couples divide the work of household management. Relative resource theories of household bargaining inform analyses of who does the housework, but their applicability to household management is unclear, if only because management responsibility may be viewed as unwanted drudgery or as coveted control over family and household. Building on theories of power and exchange, this article examines the relation of relative resources and management responsibility and asks whether the partner who does more housework also does more management. According to 2002 International Social Survey Program data for 31 countries, three fourths of married persons report joint, rather than individual, decision making on children's upbringing, weekend activities, and major purchases. Supporting a gendered relative resource hypothesis, women, and not men, are more likely to take sole charge of household decision making when their income is higher than their partner's.

The extension of life expectancy has made possible the life cycle transitions we have come to associate with middle and later years. Because more and more Americans now live to see middle age, old age, and even advanced old age, these stages of life have been democratized. They have been made accessible to a broad cross-section of the population, rather than to only a select few. In conjunction with more generational independence of living arrangements, longer lifetimes have given rise to the empty nest followed by a postmarital period of solitary living. Changes in labor force participation patterns have meant that older persons today experience a relatively new life-style and life stage called retirement.

The extension of life expectancy has made possible the life cycle transitions recently associated with middle & later years. Because more & more Americans now live to middle age, old age, & even advanced old age, these stages of life have been democratized, or made accessible to a broad cross-section of the population, rather than to only a select few. In conjunction with more generational independence of living arrangements, longer lifetimes have given rise to the empty nest followed by a postmarital period of solitary living. Changes in LF participation patterns have meant that most older persons today experience the relatively new life stage of retirement. 1 Table, 1 Figure. HA.