Alisa C. Lewin

Age and the Desire to Marry

Understanding attitudes toward marriage at older ages is increasingly important as young adults delay marriage and large numbers of people return to the marriage market after divorce. This study examines age differences in the desire to marry among singles age 18 to 69 years, taking into account selection into marriage. Using data drawn from the General Social Survey (GSS), multinomial regressions show that single men and women age 55 to 69 years have less desire to marry than younger single men and women. This age difference in single peoples desire to marry is not fully explained by differences in factors that are likely to affect the real or perceived gains from marriage, such as personal resources, children, experience of divorce, or religiosity.

The Effect of Economic Stability on Family Stability among Welfare Recipients

The main rationale for defining two-parent families eligible for welfare was to keep families intact by eliminating an incentive for union dissolution. But there are other reasons for family instability, most notably women’s reduced economic gain from marriage associated with having a chronically unemployed husband. This article explores the hypothesis that husband’s unemployment increases union dissolution among welfare recipients. The analysis uses data from California’s Link-Up demonstration project. A discrete-time event-history methodology was employed to examine family instability. The findings show that husband’s unemployment and the family’s long-term welfare dependency lead to breakup, net of race, age, and number of children.

Who Benefits the Most? The Unequal Allocation of Transfers in the Israeli Welfare State *

Objective. This article critically examines contradictions within the Israeli welfare system, and asks how welfare transfers affect poverty for different social groups. Methods. Using data from Israel’s 1996 Income Survey conducted by the Central Bureau of Statistics, the analysis focuses on households with working-age heads, and compares poverty rates, before and after transfers among three groups: (1) recent immigrants; (2) Arabs; and (3) ultra-orthodox Jews (Haredim), distinguishing between couple- and female-headed households. Results. The results show that social welfare policy is more effective in aiding recent immigrants, who are entitled to special benefits, than aiding Arabs. The findings also show that transfers have a stronger effect in reducing poverty among female-headed families than among couple-headed families, thus reducing the gap between these two types of households. Conclusions. Israeli welfare policy reduces poverty, but this effect differs substantially by social group. While formally Israel is considered a universalistic welfare state, for historical and ideological reasons certain social groups, such as Jewish immigrants, have been favored and granted extra benefits, while others, such as Arabs, were neglected.

Immigration, State Support, and the Economic Well-Being of the Elderly in Israel

The economic well-being of the elderly largely reflects their cumulative achievements in the labor market and the success of welfare policy in reducing income gaps and inequality. This article focuses on the effect of immigration, especially its timing along the life course, on economic well-being later in life. Using data from a nationally representative survey of the elderly population in Israel, we found that immigrants entering Israel at a young age were able not only to accumulate sufficient labor force experience but also to secure the types of employment that grant high levels of benefits. Thus, they could achieve economic independence by old age. The findings underscore the role of the state in compensating those who immigrated at older ages for their inability to accumulate market resources by raising them above the poverty line.

Does Women's Employment Reduce Poverty? Evidence from Israel

This article focuses on two dimensions of the effect of womens employment on poverty. On the micro level, it examines the effects of womens employment on the odds of their household being poor, and, on the macro level, it examines the effects of womens employment on poverty rates in society. Analysing Israels 1996 Income Survey, our findings confirm the general argument that womens employment is negatively related to poverty, in both female- and couple-headed households. The findings show that poverty levels are substantially lower in households in which women participate in the labour market, either on a full-time or on a part-time basis, than in households in which the woman is not economically active. At the macro level, our simulations demonstrate that increasing womens employment, even to a part-time level, would reduce poverty in both couple- and female-headed households, and would reduce the economic disparities between these two types of households. Our findings also suggest that while universal employment of female heads of household has an unequivocal equalizing effect on poverty rates, universal employment of women in couple-headed households increases the poverty rate. These findings reveal the different selection processes of women in female- and couple-headed households into paid employment.

Health and Relationship Quality Later in Life A Comparison of Living Apart Together (LAT), First Marriages, Remarriages, and Cohabitation

This study compares happiness in the relationship, support, and strain in LAT (living apart together, i.e., noncohabiting) relationships with first marriages, remarriages, and cohabitation among older adults in the United States. The study also asks whether partner’s health affects relationship quality differently in different relationship types. This study draws on the first wave of the National Social Life Health & Aging Project 2005-2006, (n = 1992). Partner’s physical and mental health are good predictors of relationship quality and their effects do not differ by relationship type. Men are more likely to be very happy in their relationship and to receive high support than women, but they also report more strain. LAT relationships are less likely to be very happy and to have high support than marriage and remarriage, but they also have lower strain. Different interpretations of “strain” are discussed.

Using group mean centering for computing adjusted means by site in a randomized experimental design. The case of California's Work Pays Demonstration Project.

When analyzing data from a randomized experiment that is replicated across multiple sites and includes covariates, the covariates can adjust for differences from either the grand mean or the group (site) mean. The analysis strategy determines the reference point. Pooling the sites and using a standard analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) adjusts for differences around the grand mean, whereas analyzing each site separately adjusts for differences around each group (site) mean. This article demonstrates that group mean centering permits pooling data from multiple sites into a single analysis while still using the group mean as a reference point for evaluating the covariate.

Intentions to Live Together Among Couples Living Apart: Differences by Age and Gender

One of the central questions about LAT (living apart together) is whether these partnerships are short-term arrangements due to temporary constraints, and should be viewed as part of courtship towards cohabitation and marriage, or whether they replace cohabitation and marriage as a long-term arrangement. The current study addresses this question and examines intentions to live together among people living apart by age and gender. This study uses Generations and Gender Study (GGS) data for eleven European countries. The findings reveal an interesting interaction of age and gender. More specifically, younger women have higher intentions to live together than younger men, but older women have lower intentions than older men. These gender differences remain significant also in the multivariate analyses. These findings suggest that older women in LAT may be undoing gender to a greater extent than younger women, who still intend to live in a more traditional (and probably gendered) arrangement of cohabitation and possibly marriage. Having resident children reduces intentions to live together among people younger than age 50, but the effect does not differ by gender. The effect of non-resident children on intentions to live together is statistically non-significant.

The Effect of Family Size on Incentive Effects of Welfare Transfers in Two-Parent Families An Evaluation Using Experimental Data

Family size is an important determinant of family well-being, and it is a good predictor of poverty. This study examines effects of waiving the 100-hour rule, by family size, and distinguishes between the “work-incentive effects” and the “eligibility effects” of the waiver. The 100-hour rule limits eligibility to aid to two-parent families in which the principal earner is unemployed or underemployed (works fewer than 100 hours per month). The study uses data from the Link-Up randomized experiment, conducted in California’s Central Valley, from 1992 to 1994. The findings show that the eligibility effect of the waiver does not differ by family size, but the work-incentive effect does.

Red unions and bourgeois democracy: A quantitative-historical analysis of worker militancy and socialist electoral power

Abstract This paper investigates how workers’ “economic struggle” determines the “democratic class struggle,” and extends socialist electoral constituency. This paper argues that political outcomes, namely, electoral behavior, may not be understood independently of the labor process, especially its most militant manifestation, strikes. Rather than follow the customary conceptual dichotomy between the sphere of production and the political sphere, it is suggested that both strike activity and electoral participation are compatible political strategies that, under specific historical circumstances, may jointly determine the fate of the Socialist party. The leading question is how did the wave of strikes in post World War I Italy affect the electoral power of the Italian Socialist party, in comparison with another mass party, the Popular Catholic Party. Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) is employed to analyze census, strike, and electoral data. It is found that strike activity and electoral democracy increased the electoral power of the Socialist party, whereas they had little effect on the power of the Catholic party. It is suggested that this was due to the Catholic non-revolutionary program which was ambivalent about the political role of strikes. It is concluded that the socialists’ political success was determined by their dual political strategy in both spheres, electoral participation, and organizing strikes.