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This study investigated the economic conditions of female-headed households in Taiwan and compared them with those in the United States and Sweden in 2000. At the descriptive level, we investigated the socioeconomic backgrounds of the households, the rate of poverty, distributive effects of public and private transfers, and Gini coefficients at each stage of income distribution. We then conducted logistic regression analyses of the poverty rate at the last stage of income distribution. The major finding was that within the context of a small welfare state, Taiwan had the lowest poverty rate before transfers and the second lowest poverty rate after transfers of the three countries we studied. Moreover, at the last stage of income distribution, only two independent variables (education and work status of the household head) affected the poverty rate. We conclude that Taiwan, as one of the developmental welfare regimes in Asia, had created a different way of enhancing the economic wellbeing of female-headed ...

This article reports on a study of the extent to which the gap between women and men’s income levels narrow down in Korea and the United States when social insurance benefits, non-social insurance public transfers, and private transfers are distributed in incremental ways. The major findings were that transfer activities are still in their infancy in Korea compared with the United States; gender-based gaps do not narrow down in Korea to the same extent as they do in the United States; and in Korea women have to go further to catch up with men with respect to the factors related in attachment to labor force than do women in the United States. The data is drawn from the Korean Labor & Income Panel Study and the Current Population Survey of the United States.

As demographic shifts make the Social Security program financially vulnerable, the responsibility for income security in old age will shift from the government to elderly people. In this changing environment, the accumulation of wealth will be a crucial issue because wealth holders can draw income from assets, which can supplement retirement income. Thus, wealth (or net worth) is a proximate indicator of economic well-being of the elderly. This article presents the findings of a study of the net worth of elderly people with disabilities. The major findings were that a smaller proportion of elderly people with disabilities has assets of any type compared with elderly people with no disability; the dollar value of each type of asset is smaller among elderly people with disabilities than among elderly people with no disability; and the net worth of people with disabilities is smaller than that of elderly people with no disability even after other variables were controlled.

As the social security program comes under increasing financial pressure in the coming decades, the federal government will encourage elderly people to continue to work. Data from the Social Security Administration indicate that earnings are already a sizable component of retirement income. But there is public concern about how women and minorities will fare economically in this changing policy environment. To what extent can women and minorities keep earning money after they reach retirement age? This article presents the results of a study that investigated the postretirement earnings, relative to the preretirement earnings, of women and minorities, and compared the results with those for men and whites. The major finding, based on regression analyses, was that women's postretirement earnings, relative to their preretirement earnings, were greater than those of men. Furthermore, the regression results indicate that nonwhites' postretirement earnings could not be predicted by their preretirement earnings or by any of the independent variables used in the study, including age, gender, education, marital status, number of children, occupation, and preretirement earnings.

Among all the industrialized countries, Japan has the fastest rate of population aging and the highest life expectancy at birth. It is projected that the proportion of elderly people will reach 35.7&#37 in 2050. In this demographic environment, Japan launched a social insurance program for long-term care for the elderly in 2000. What were the forces that led Japan to establish a long-term care program for elderly people&#63 What are the provisions for financing, benefits, and service delivery&#63 What aspects of policymaking in developing such a program are unique to Japan&#63.

The federal policy on older workers has shifted from the encouragement of early withdrawal from the labor force to the encouragement of continuous participation in the labor force. In this light, it is instructive to investigate the backgrounds of elderly people who work at age 70 or older. This article presents the findings of a study, using data from the 1993 Asset and Health Dynamics of the Oldest Old Study, that investigated the effects of health, economic conditions (net worth, employer-provided pensions, and supplemental medical insurance coverage), education, and spouse's work status on the probability of working among men aged 70 or older. The study addressed the probability of working, the probability of working fulltime and of working part-time, and the probability of being self-employed and of being employed by others. Implications for policy are discussed.

It is widely believed that people who earned more while they were young tend to be healthier in old age. Our study, the findings of which are presented in this article, questioned whether this generalization applies equally to black and white elderly people. A multivariate analysis, which included gender, marital status, age, education, and number of children raised as control variables, indicated that the level of earnings during people's working lives is not related to the health impairments of black people at the time of retirement or 10 years later, but strongly related to the health impairments of white people.

SUMMARY The attainment of economic parity between men and women has been a focal point of the women's movements in many countries. How much worse off are women economically? What are the net, gender differences in economic well-being when other factors are taken into account? What factors explain the level of economic well-being of women compared to men's? This article reports the results of a study of the gender differences in the economic well-being of women and men in the United States from 1969 to 1999. The major findings are that the gender differential in economic well-being widened during these decades; women's economic well-being was more adversely affected by non-married status than men's; the increasing educational attainment of women offset the adverse effect of marital dissolution on them; and women continued to pay a higher price for caring for children than did men. Implications for policy are discussed.

Although Americans have a high propensity to divorce, many of them remarry soon afterward. However, little is known about the degree of financial benefit that remarriage provides. This article presents the findings from a study on the financial benefit of remarriage. In particular, the study estimated the differential economic impact of remarriage on men versus women and on high-income persons versus low-income persons. The major findings were that women benefit more from remarriage than do men and that high-income persons benefit more from remarriage than do low-income persons. For men and women, the variables children and education exerted similar effects on the change in their income status due to remarriage, but for high-income and low-income persons, the independent variables had considerably different effects. Implications for policies are discussed.

1. Linezolid (ZYVOX), the first of a new class of antibiotics, the oxazolidinones, is approved for treatment of Gram-positive bacterial infections. 2. The aim was to determine the absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion (ADME) of linezolid in mouse, rat and dog in support of preclinical safety studies and clinical development. 3. Conventional replicate study designs were employed in animal experiments, and biofluids were assayed by HPLC or HPLC-MS. 4. Linezolid was rapidly absorbed after p.o. dosing with an p.o. bioavailability of > 95% in rat and dog, and > 70% in mouse. Twenty-eight-day i.v./p.o. toxicokinetic studies in rat (20-200mg kg(-1) day(-1)) and dog (10-80 mg kg(-1) day(-1)) revealed neither a meaningful increase in clearance nor accumulation upon multiple dosing. 5. Linezolid had limited protein binding (

As the public debates Social Security reform, the provision of spousal benefits will become an important issue. Under the Social Security program, the spouse with lower lifetime earnings is guaranteed at least 50 percent of the benefit of the spouse with higher lifetime earnings. Given the increasing financial problems of the Social Security program, spousal benefits will be scrutinized as a cost-cutting measure. Who benefits from the provision of spousal benefits, and how much? Is there a difference between the spousal benefits that lower-income and higher-income married couples receive? This article presents findings from an empirical study that investigated these questions and discusses their policy implications.

Laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) has been used to examine behaviors of the CF2 radicals and O atoms in oxygen/fluorocarbon plasmas by utilizing a magnetic neutral loop discharge (NLD), which is characterized by the efficient plasma production around the neutral loop, 'NL region'. It was found that, in a pure CF4 plasma, the radial profile of CF2 density near the NL region changes from convex to concave with increasing rf power. This implies that the NL region is a source for CF2 at low rf powers and changes into a net sink at high rf powers, probably due to the excess dissociation of CF2. In contrast, the O atom density in a pure O2 plasma was found to be very high and increases steadily against the rf power, corresponding to the dissociation degree of more than 20%. These features, emphasized by the high dissociation efficiency of the NLD, demonstrate different behaviors of both species related with the production and loss mechanisms. In plasmas of O2/CF4 mixtures, it was found that the variation of O density as a function of gas composition is mostly linear, depending on the dilution factor, while that of CF2 is nonlinear. This fact straightforwardly indicates that CF2 is mainly lost through reaction with O2 and that O is generated by the dissociation of residual O2. The change in the CF2 radial profile by O2 addition suggested that CF2 and O2 react in gas-phase and that the NL region fundamentally acts as a source for CF2. The results for O2/C4F8 plasmas were also presented and understood with the same description as in O2/CF4 plasmas taking into account the compositional balance of C/O2 and the slow surface-loss process.

1. Bropirimine (2-amino-5-bromo-6-phenyl-4-pyrimidinone) is a member of a class of antineoplastic agents that are administered concomitantly or sequentially with anticancer 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) prodrugs in clinical patients. Interactions between bropirimine and 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) were investigated on dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPD) activity, the rate-limiting enzyme of 5-FU metabolism, in human liver cytosol. Apparent DPD activity was determined by measuring the recovery of [14C]5-FU by HPLC. 2. The apparent activity of 5-FU metabolism (2.1-100 microM) showed a linear relationship in the Eadie-Hofstee plot in the pooled cytosol, suggesting that a single enzyme is responsible for apparent 5-FU metabolism. Km and Vmax were estimated to be 23 microM and 0.32 nmol min(-1) mg(-1) protein, respectively. Apparent DPD activity for 5-FU (25 microM) in the cytosol from 12 individual donors ranged from 0.017 to 0.39 (0.16 +/- 0.12) nmol min(-1) mg(-1) protein, indicating a large intersubject variance. 3. The suicidal inactivators of the DPD enzyme, (E)-5-(2-bromovinyl)uracil and 5-bromouracil (6.3-50 microM), illustrated concentration-dependent inhibition on DPD activity. Isocytosine (6.3-100 microM), used as a negative control, did not affect DPD activity. Bropirimine (6.3-100 microM) also did not show any inhibition of DPD activity. Therefore, bropirimine is unlikely to cause increases in 5-FU levels in clinical patients after co-administration of bropirimine with 5-FU prodrugs.

As the proportion of the population of children decreases and the United States is increasingly exposed to global economic competition, children's economic well-being will become a major public policy issue. This study investigated the changes in income inequality among children from 1969 to 1979, 1979 to 1989, and 1969 to 1989 and compared them with the changes among adults and elderly people during the same periods. The major findings were that (1) income inequality among children increased at a faster rate than among adult and elderly groups, whether it was measured at the pretransfer stage or the posttransfer stage, and (2) the increased income inequality among children was due, in part, to the declining effectiveness of public income transfers-especially social insurance benefits-in lessening income inequality among children.

This study examined racial and ethnic differences in use of health services by white, African American, and Hispanic elderly. people. Using a national representative sample of elderly from the AHEAD study, we estimated a two-part model of health services utilization. We found that African American and Hispanic elderly were more likely to make physician visits than white elderly. Among those who made physician visits, Hispanic elderly made more visits than white elderly. We also found that the effects of factors affecting use of health services varied by race and ethnicity. These results lead us to reject the homogeneity assumption made by many health services researchers.

As the aging of the population accelerates in the coming decades, the use of formal services by elderly persons will become an important issue. This article presents the findings of a study on the pattern of utilization of out-of-home services and in-home services among a cohort of social security beneficiaries in the 10 years after their retirement. The study found that the determinants of the use of these two types of services are distinctly different. For example, the variable health impairments is related to the use of in-home services but not out-of-home services; on the other hand, education is related to the use of out-of-home services but not in-home services. The implications of these findings for social work practice are discussed.

The enactment of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 and the Taxpayers Relief Act of 1997 signals the U.S. commitment to developing human capital among children. However, any such initiative must be pursued within the context of the rapidly changing demographics and the current economic standing of each racial/ethnic group of children, as well as the entire population of children. This paper presents the projections of future changes in the racial/ ethnic composition of children and the results of a study on the quintile distribution of children in the U.S. population, ranked by income statuses. The findings indicate that over three-quarters of Hispanic children and nearly three-quarters of black children are in the bottom two quintiles. Given the rapidly changing demographics and the lower economic standing of minority children, the public policy intervention of investing in children needs to be targeted to minority children.

Over the past three decades, the economic status of elderly Americans has vastly improved, but little is known about how satisfied elderly persons are with their economic lives. Using a national representative sample of retired workers from the New Beneficiary Followup Survey, this article presents the results of a Study on the effects of economic conditions and health status on economic satisfaction among American workers, 11 years after they started receiving social security benefits and/or Medicare coverage. The study found that both economic conditions and health status are significant determinants of economic satisfaction among these persons. More important, it found that good health contributes more to these persons' economic satisfaction than do good economic conditions.

As the United States attempts to minimize public spending on social welfare programs and to shift the authority over many programs to the states, the federal government needs to establish a program of income security for children that is not tied to welfare. Such a program is in the national interest because the country will need a strong, competent workforce to deal with stiffer global economic competition and a greater financial obligation to support the elderly. This article discusses why income security for children cannot be provided by the current system of income transfers and advocates the establishment of a $1,000 refundable tax credit for all children and an expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit.

Restriction landmark genomic scanning (RLGS) is a novel method which enables us to simultaneously visualize a large number of loci as two-dimensional gel spots. By this method, the status of DNA methylation can efficiently be determined by monitoring the appearance or disappearance of spots by using a methylation-sensitive restriction enzyme. In the present study, using RLGS with NotI, we examined, in comparison with a brain RLGS profile, the status of DNA methylation of more than 900 loci among three types of mouse cell lines: the embryonal carcinoma cell line P19, the stable mesenchymal cell line 10T1/2, and our established neuroepithelial (EM) cell lines. We found that the relative numbers of RLGS spots which appeared were less than 3.3% of those surveyed in all cell lines examined. However, 5 to 14% of spots disappeared, the numbers increasing with an increase in the length of the culture period, and many spots were commonly lost in 10T1/2 and in three EM cell lines. Thus, for these cell lines, many more spots disappeared than appeared. However, the numbers of spots disappearing and appearing were well balanced, and the ratio in P19 cells was almost equal to that in liver cells in vivo. These RLGS experimental observations suggested that permanent cell lines such as 10T1/2 are hypermethylated and that our newly established EM cell lines are also becoming heavily methylated at common loci. On the other hand, methylation and demethylation seem to be balanced in P19 cells in a manner similar to that in in vivo liver tissue.

The aim of respite care services is to alleviate the stress placed on primary caregivers of the frail elderly. This article describes an innovative respite care program in Missouri that incor- porates a service credit system as an incentive for volunteers to participate. It also presents the findings of an exploratory study on the volunteers who participated in the program. Among other things, the study found that the volunteers' level of satisfaction with the program was extremely high and that those who were less healthy, were recipients of Supplemental Security Income, and had never done volunteer work before, took the service credit system more seriously than did others.

This paper describes a training program aimed at preparing 14 MSW students to teach AIDS prevention to adolescents at risk of HIV infection (i.e., increase knowledge, alter attitudes and teach risk-reduction behaviors). The majority of the students perceived this training not only as helpful in preparing them for the task at hand, but also in improving their overall social work skills and their chances to get a social work job in the future. In this paper, we also discuss problems related to AIDS prevention that arose during the training, such as rape and risk-reduction precautions and whether or not AIDS counselors should recommend taking the AIDS test.

The normal retirement age in the United States is gradually increasing from 65 to 67 (by the year 2027) as provided by the 1983 Amendments to the Social Security Act. One can raise the question, "Who will be the most affected by this change?" This article presents the findings from a study that investigated the relationship between the primary reason given by recently retired workers for their retirement and their economic and demographic backgrounds. A logistic regression analysis was performed using data from the 1982 New Beneficiary Survey concerning involuntary reasons. A major finding was that economically disadvantaged workers tended to retire for involuntary reasons. Therefore, policymakers need to consider the establishment of policies that would protect such workers from the adverse financial impact of the increase in the normal retirement age.

Although there is every evidence that the degree of stigma attached to income support programs for the elderly has been decreasing, only about one-half of the elderly individuals who are eligible participate currently in the Supplemental Security Income program (SSI). The present study explores issues of stigma as perceived by low-income elderly persons who were not receiving Old Age Assistance payments in 1973-a year before SSI went into effect. The results of regression analysis indicate that their attitudes toward issues of stigma are statistically nonsignificant predictors of whether they would contact social security ofiice in 1974 to inquire about their eligibility for SSI benefits. The data source for the present study is the Survey of the Low-Income Aged and Disabled (SLIAD) conducted in 1973 and 1974 by the Social Security Administration with the cooperation of the Bureau of the Census.

This paper investigates experience with SSI, differential attitudes toward it, and financial condition among its recipients in Mississippi and California. The question addressed in the present study is whether SSI recipients who live in different parts of the country differ in the way they assess their financial condition, evaluate the SSI program, and feel stigmatized. Findings from the study indicate that Mississippi SSI recipients responded more positively in all areas of research concerns than did California SSI recipients.

The authors observe the increasing prevalence of sophisticated data analysis on the Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System. They select one of the analytical tools- the benefit-cost analysis-and review its methodology in some detail. They further present a model for using the benefit-cost analysis at the agency or program level as an aid in decision making. The model involves a five-step procedure: (a) statement of objectives; (b) cost attribution; (c) benefit projection; d) data analysis; and (e) decision making. As apart of this procedure, the authors introduce a value-weighted mechanism for benefit determination. The model is then demonstrated through a simulation. Although the authors caution that the benefit-cost analysis is a limited tool and does not supplant the role of decision maker, they conclude that it can be a useful device in organizing the data needed to make competent decisions about social service delivery.

There are great differences in the level of income that state governments provide to poor families with children. This study attempts to identify, through a stepwise regression analysis, statistically significant determinants of maximum monthly AFDC payments in the state. Controlling for other variables in the multiple regression model, the percentage of nonwhite population in the state is found to be the strongest predictor of the level of maximum monthly AFDC payments (a negative relationship). Per capita personal income and tax effort in the state are also found to be statistically significant predictors of the dependent variable (positive relationships).

As the number of elderly persons increases, the social service needs of older Americans will grow too. To provide a variety of services, many social service agencies across the nation are helping the elderly organize to help themselves. This paper represents the second of a series of research reports derived from a federally funded research project to investigate the types of services that trained elderly volunteers provide to other elderly persons in the community. This paper presents a multivariate analysis of elderly volunteers who go beyond providing socializing and reassuring services and provide instrumental services. The independant variables are developed to capture the level of the physical and mental strengths of elderly volunteers. Theses strengths are psychological functioning, perceived health, psychological adjustment, and social resources. In addition, program-participation factors, such as the duration of participation in the volunteer project and the number of persons served, as well as v...