Jill Quadagno

Political Theories of the Welfare State

We review the main theoretical conclusions from a quarter century of comparative studies of welfare states in the affluent democracies. We contrast early debates over the relative importance of industrialization, economic growth, and social classes for explaining welfare state differences with contemporary claims about the role of globalization, postindustrialism, and gender relations in shaping their futures. We evaluate the claims against recent empirical evidence with the aim of highlighting both important lessons from the past and promising directions for future analysis.

Predictors of Perceived Work-Family Balance: Gender Difference or Gender Similarity?

This article uses the 1996 General Social Survey (GSS) and the 1992 National Study of the Changing Workforce (NSCW) to examine two issues: the relationship of work characteristics, family characteristics, and work-family spillover to perceptions of work-family balance; and models of “gender difference” versus “gender similarity.” The GSS analysis supports the gender similarity model. It demonstrates that work demands such as the number of hours worked per week and work spillover into family life are the most salient predictors of feelings of imbalance for both women and men. The NSCW includes subtler measures of family spillover into work as well as measures of specific job characteristics and child care. The NSCW results support a gender difference model. They indicate that when family demands reduce work quality, there is a decreased likelihood of perceived balance. However, men and women experience balance in gendered ways. Women report more balance when they give priority to family; men report less balance when they have no personal time for themselves due to work and more balance when they make scheduling changes due to family.

The transformation of old age security : class and politics in the American welfare state

Why did the United States lag behind Germany, Britain, and Sweden in adopting a national plan for the elderly? When the Social Security Act was finally enacted in 1935, why did it depend on a class-based double standard? Why is old age welfare in the United States still less comprehensive than its European counterparts? In this sophisticated analytical chronicle of one hundred years of American welfare history, Jill Quadagno explores the curious birth of old age assistance in the United States. Grounded in historical research and informed by social science theory, the study reveals how public assistance grew from colonial-era poor laws, locally financed and administered, into a massive federal bureaucracy.

Generational Equity and the Politics of the Welfare State

The concept of generational equity--that the nation is squandering its wealth on entitlements to the elderly while children remain impoverished--has received considerable media attention. The author traces the source of that message to an organization, Americans for Generational Equity, which is dedicated to restructuring the Social Security system along the lines of a social assistance program: reduced benefits available at later ages only to those who qualify through means tests. The impact of this agenda would be to increase the labor force participation of older people, particularly women and minorities, those presently without private pension coverage and already heavily represented in that sector of the economy where labor shortage is developing. Defining national spending priorities in terms of intergenerational conflict obscures the fact that Social Security is the only U.S. welfare program that has been successful in reducing poverty levels.

Other Ways of Growing Old: Anthropological Perspectives.

Contents EISDORFER CARL AMOSS PAMELA T. HARRELL STEVAN WEISS KENNETH M. HRDY SARAH BLAFFER BIESELE MEGAN HOWELL NANCY SHARP HENRY S. ARSDALE PETER W. VAN COLSON ELIZABETH SCUDDER THAYER NASON JAMES D. SHAHRANI M. NAZIF HARRELL STEVAN HIEBERT PAUL G. AMOSS PAMELA T.

The Welfare State and the Cultural Reproduction of Gender: Making Good Girls and Boys in the Job Corps

In this paper we examine theoretical arguments about cultural reproduction and resistance in the context of the welfare state. We argue that the welfare state reproduces gender stratification structurally by replicating a gendered division of labor and culturally by inculcating an ideological framework that sustains that division of labor. We illustrate our arguments through an historical study of the War on Poverty, a key period in the history of the welfare state. The Job Corps, a core anti-poverty program, trained young men and women in basic skills and prepared them for jobs in the skilled trades. While job training for young, African-American women emphasized middle-class, homemaking skills, young men received training in the skilled trades. This training enabled men to challenge racial discrimination in the labor market but concentrated womens labor — paid and unpaid — in the realm of domestic status production and consumption.

Institutions, Interest Groups, and Ideology: An Agenda for the Sociology of Health Care Reform

A central sociological premise is that health care systems are organizations that are embedded within larger institutions, which have been shaped by historical precedents and operate within a specific cultural context. Although bound by policy legacies, embedded constituencies, and path dependent processes, health care systems are not rigid, static, and impervious to change. The success of health care reform in 2010 has shown that existing regimes do have the capacity to respond to new needs in ways that transcend their institutional and ideological limits. For the United States the question is how health care reform will reconfigure the existing network of public and private benefits and the power relationships between the numerous constituencies surrounding them. This article considers how institutions, interest groups, and ideology have affected the organization of the health care system in the United States as well as in other nations. It then discusses issues for future research in the aftermath of the 2009-10 health care reform debate.

Occupational Sex-Typing and Internal Labor Market Distributions: An Assessment of Medical Specialties

While several studies have detailed the distribution of women in the labor force, these studies have generally been concerned with external rather than internal employment markets. The present study analyzes the occupation of physician internally with regard to the distribution of males and females among the various medical specialties. Data from a questionnaire presented to male and female physicians at various stages in their medical careers are analyzed to determine whether the medical specialties are viewed in stereotypical terms. Interview material from the subjects is then used to determine how these images are translated into actual contingencies which affect the distribution of individuals in the labor force. It is concluded that the future labor market may show drastic external changes but may remain internally segregated.

Paradigms in Evolutionary Theory: The Sociobiological Model of Natural Selection

One of the few theories in the history of ideas which has been held in common by both the social and natural sciences as well as philosophy is that of evolution. As a scientific paradigm evolutionary theory can be analyzed according to five principles: change, order, direction, progress and perfectibility. Darwinian evolutionary theory was based on the idea that change in forms occurs through the mechanism of natural selection. Darwins central problem was to explain the apparent instability of species, which he observed in fossils. In contrast, the central problem of sociobiology has been to explain the evolution of social behaviors, including complex human social behaviors. A key issue has been the origin of altruism. In explaining the origins of social behavior, sociobiologists have altered the paradigm of evolutionary theory as originally formulated by Darwin in several ways. First, they have argued that the principal effect of natural selection must be the maximization of reproduction. Second, the concept of fitness has been altered; species typical behavior has come to be defined as fit behavior. Third, there has been an increased stress on the adaptive nature of behavior, with the subsequent effect that nonadaptive evolution has been ignored. Two specific examples of sociobiological reasoning which both purport to explain altruism, kin selection and reciprocal altruism, provide an example of tautological reasoning. In terms of both logic and method, sociobiology cannot be applied to the analysis of complex human social behavior. Sociobiology is based on a preconceived notion of change leading to a necessarily adaptive order in which the morality of human consciousness is replaced by the morality of gene survival.

The Effect of Licensure Type on the Policies, Practices, and Resident Composition of Florida Assisted Living Facilities

PURPOSE Most assisted living facility (ALF) residents are White widows in their mid- to late 80s who need assistance with activities of daily living (ADLs) because of frailty or cognitive decline. Yet, ALFs also serve younger individuals with physical disabilities, traumatic brain injury, or serious mental illness. We compare Florida ALFs with different licensure profiles by admission-discharge policies and resident population characteristics. DESIGN AND METHODS We use state administrative data and facility survey data from the Florida Study of Assisted Living (FSAL) to classify ALFs by licensure type and to determine how licensure influences ALF policies, practices, and resident population profiles. RESULTS Standard-licensed traditional ALFs primarily serve elderly White women with physical care needs and typically retain residents when their physical health deteriorates. Some ALFs that hold specialty licenses (extended congregate care and limited nursing services) offer extra physical care services and serve an older, more physically frail population with greater physical and cognitive challenges. ALFs with limited mental health (LMH) licenses serve clientele who are more racially and ethnically diverse, younger, and more likely to be men and single. LMH facilities also have a significant proportion of frail elder residents who live alongside these younger residents, including some who exhibit behavioral problems. LMH facilities also employ discharge policies that make it more difficult for frail elderly residents to age in place. IMPLICATIONS These differences by facility type raise important quality of life issues for both the frail elderly individuals and assisted living residents who do not fit the conventional demographic profile.