published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between single-mother migration and social and emotional adjustment in Jamaican adolescents, and to ascertain what factors influenced adolescent adjustment. The participants were 187 Jamaican adolescents ages 13 to 17 years, from five high schools and two junior high schools from a rural parish. There were 64 males and 123 females. The participants were divided into two groups – migrant and non-migrant. There were 100 participants in the migrant group and 87 in the non-migrant. Multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA) and regression analyses revealed that while there were no significant differences between the groups in social adjustment, the migrant group reported higher self-esteem and lower depression than the non-migrant group, and adolescent adjustment was predicted by family support and single-mother absence. Implications for future research suggest the utilization of a mixed method approach to examine adolescent adjustment and point to the need for further research to reinforce and expand the findings of this study. / Department of Educational Psychology

Thesis (D. Min.)--Ashland Theological Seminary, 2005. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 160-168).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--McMaster University, 2006. / Supervisor: Thomas Crossley. Includes bibliographical references.

The aim of the study was to investigate the diet diversity, food access and coping strategies applied by single mothers with young children in the Northern Okavango region of Botswana. A qualitative and quantitative survey was chosen as the research design for this study. The study site was Gumare village in rural Ngamiland and the sample included only single female headed households. The questionnaires used were contextualized to reflect the culture, food patterns and specific foods commonly consumed in Botswana. Three questionnaires were used: 1. A socio- demographic questionnaire to document household size, age, marital status, income and water sources and the indigenous and wild foods that were gathered 2. The international standardized Household Dietary Diversity Score (HDDS) questionnaire to identify the variety of foods from fourteen food groups consumed by households over the previous 24 hours 3. The international standardized Coping Strategies Index (CSI) to determine the coping strategy behaviours of members of the household when faced with food shortages The socio demographic results of the study showed that female headed households had an average 7.4 members. They were seriously affected by poverty, as 58% of the households had registered under the Botswana Social Welfare programme as destitute. Therefore qualifies to be assisted through provision of food baskets and cash vouchers. The overall results obtained from the household dietary diversity questionnaire showed a diet diversity score of 2.0. This is an extremely low diet diversity value, which indicate a high level of vulnerability to food insecurity and inadequate food access. The foods which were mainly consumed by households were from the cereal food group, reflecting the global situation among the poor who rely on starch- based diets. The intake from dairy products (10%), meats (28%) and Vitamin A rich vegetables (16%) was limited. Given the limited food variety resulting in severe restriction to food access, coping strategies to address food shortages were employed. These included; relying on less preferred and less expensive food (100%), gathering wild food, hunting or harvesting immature crops (68%), limiting portion sizes (96%), reducing the number of meals eaten in the day (76%), depending on government food baskets (58%) and reducing overall food intake when the government food basket was not adequate (50%). It can be concluded that, given the restricted food access and a severely limited diversity in consumed food, extended government welfare assistance is crucial. The findings of this study could be used to guide the Botswana government when formulating new approaches and interventions to address food access and ultimately food security in households in this poverty- stricken area. / Agriculture, Animal Health and Human Ecology / M.A. (Human Ecology)

This final thesis is about single mothers living in shelters with their children. In the theoretical part of work are defined and desrcribed basic terms as single mother, system of shelters and reasons what kind of single mothers mostly needs help of shelters. The aim of my final thesis was to concentrate on the problems of single mothers in shelters and find out, which services are offered to single mothers. While analyzing this problem also other aspects were watched: from what social background do single mothers come to shelters, what is the most common reason for coming there, what do not they like in shelters, if they have any problems to get used to schedule of shelter and what is the most limiting factor for returning to independent life. For the empiric part of my final thesis was chosen qualitative approach and method of semidirected conversation. At the end of the work were determined steps, based on the analyzed date, which can be used practically.

Ensamstående mödrar kan utifrån samhällets normer betraktas som ett socialt problem, eller en social framgång. Forskning har funnit att ensamstående mödrar ofta har sämre livsvillkor än andra samhällsgrupper, även i jämförelse med ensamstående fäder. Följande studie undersökte hur de ensamstående mödrarna själva såg på sin situation, utifrån stigma och social exklusion i det svenska samhället. Studien baserades på en kvalitativ metod i form av semistrukturerade intervjuer, med sju ensamstående mödrar. Resultaten visade att majoriteten av informanterna har upplevt stigmatiserande och socialt exkluderande behandling från såväl samhällsinstanser som övriga samhällsgrupper. Resultaten visade också på att samtliga informanter upplever att den generella förståelsen och det tillgängliga stödet för deras livssituation är bristfällig.

The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act (PRWORA) significantly affected many families by changing public assistance from an entitlement program to a work program for recipients and imposing a 60 month maximum period for receiving assistance. Unanticipated outcomes created deleterious results for many single parents. This multiple case study explored the experiences of four African American single mothers in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States receiving assistance regarding welfare reform, the welfare system and their perceptions of welfare advocacy. Black feminist and empowerment theories framed the study to examine how welfare policy changes affected African American women's families and their abilities to advocate. Data were collected from narrative interviews and artifacts provided by 4 participants and analyzed using thematic content analysis. The key findings demonstrate recipients who had no prior interest in Temporary Assistance to Needy Families advocacy found their voices when invited; offering insights about system challenges and successes as well as strategies for improvement This study will impact social change by informing policymakers, think-tank researchers, community program developers, and public assistance caseworkers for policy discussions regarding PRWORA. Women may also learn strategies for advocacy and organizing from the analysis.

In many real-world settings, individuals face a dynamic decision problem: choices in the present have an impact on future outcomes. It it important for researchers to recognizing these dynamic forces so that we are able to fully understand the trade-offs an individual faces and to correctly estimate the parameters of interest. I study dynamic decision making in three diverse contexts: residential choice of families in New Zealand, search strategies of ridesharing drivers in Texas, and welfare participation of single mothers in Michigan. In each of these, I motivate the analysis using a theoretical model, and bring the model to the data to estimate parameters and evaluate testable implications. In the first chapter, I ask: how do schools affect where families choose to live and does their effect contribute to residential segregation? I study these questions using unique administrative microdata from Auckland, New Zealand, an ethnically diverse -- but segregated -- city. I develop and estimate a dynamic model of residential choice where forward-looking families choose neighborhoods based on their children's schools, local amenities, and moving costs. Previous studies typically estimate school quality valuations using a boundary discontinuity design. I leverage attendance zones in this setting to also generate reduced form estimates using this methodology. The structural model estimates show that the valuation of school quality varies by the child's school level and the family's ethnicity; the reduced form approach, however, cannot capture this heterogeneity. Moreover, I find that the reduced form estimates are aligned only with white families' valuations of quality. The model estimates also show that families experience a high disutility from moving houses if it results in their child changing school. In counterfactuals, I show that residential segregation increases as the link between housing and schools weakens. In the second chapter, co-authored with Vinayak Iyer, we ask: what drives the efficiency in ridesharing markets? In decentralized transportation markets, search and match frictions lead to inefficient outcomes. Ridesharing platforms, who act as intermediaries in traditional taxi markets, improve upon the status quo along two key dimensions: surge pricing and centralized matching. We study how and why these two features make the market more efficient; and explore how alternate pricing and matching rules can improve outcomes further. To this end, we develop a structural model of the ridesharing market with four components: (1) dynamically optimizing drivers who make entry, exit and search decisions; (2) stochastic demand; (3) surge pricing rule and (4) a matching technology. Relative to our benchmark model, surge pricing generates large gains for all agents; primarily during late nights. This is driven by the role surge plays in inducing drivers to enter the market. In contrast, centralized matching reduces match frictions and increases surplus for consumers, drivers, and the ridesharing platform, irrespective of the time of the day. We then show that a simple, more flexible pricing rule can generate even larger welfare gains for all agents. Our results highlight how and why centralized matching and surge pricing are able to make the market more efficient. We conclude by drawing policy implications for improving the competitiveness between taxis and ridesharing platforms. In the third chapter, co-authored with Lucas Husted, we ask: does removing families from welfare programs result in increased employment? Using detailed administrative data from Michigan, we study a policy reform in the state's TANF program that swiftly and unexpectedly removed over 10,000 families from welfare while quasi-randomly assigning time limits to over 30,000 remaining participants. We motivate our analysis using a dynamic model of welfare benefits usage. Consistent with economic theory, removing families from welfare increases formal labor force participation by roughly 4 percentage points (20\% over control group mean), with increases in annualized earnings of roughly \$500. However, despite this, the majority of families remain formally unemployed after welfare removal, and using quantile regressions we show that even the highest percentile wage gains fail to offset the loss in welfare benefits. The policy even affects families who are far from exhausting their time-limited benefits. Under a dynamic model, families have an incentive to bank benefits for future use -- an effect we observe in the data. Overall, our findings provide evidence that, contrary to their stated goals, welfare reform measures that either kick families off welfare or make welfare harder to access could possibly deepen poverty.

This research explored the perceived factors that influenced the decisions of single and married mothers to enroll or not enroll in post-secondary education. The study then investigated the relationship between educational level and income for single mothers in Utah. From a survey of 1197 Utah mothers, this study concluded that mothers enroll in post-secondary education out of desire and necessity, and there is a relationship between an educational attainment level of a Bachelor's degree of higher and the ability of a single mother to gain economic stability. Specifically, single mothers enroll in post-secondary education for financial reasons while married mothers enroll more often for personal improvement. Family and friends are important supports for mothers who decide to enroll in post-secondary education. Time is a perceived barrier for single and married mothers who decide not to enroll in post-secondary education, and money is a barrier for single mothers who decide not to enroll in post-secondary education. Married mothers in this research would enroll in post-secondary education if a life event required them to become the financial provider for the family. Strategies for dealing with insufficient income sometimes vary by educational level of the single mothers in this research. However, assets, sufficient income and money left over at the end of the month are significantly different depending on educational level, most often the Bachelor's degree or higher. Lastly, while to no significant difference was found between the employment rate and educational level of single mothers in this research, significance was found between the educational level and income of single mothers.