Due March 7th

Minimum 150 words for EACH POST BELOW:

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POST 1 – Joseph: I am choosing to research parental leave which is a part of the Family and Medical Leave Act in the United States. The United States of America is in need or reevaluating its policies on Family Leave. The United States is falling drastically behind other developed nations and is continuing to stay at its “prehistoric” beliefs and fundamentals. When looking at other civilized and developed countries the United States is among the few that do not guarantee or offer paid time off. The United States of America, throughout history, was behind the rest of the developed and civilized world when discussing and debating family and medical leave. According to the Pew Research Center out of 41 countries “U.S. is the only country among 41 nations that does not mandate any paid leave (Livingston, 2016).” To make the fact even more appalling, with 196 countries in the world, The United States is one of four other countries that does not provide paid time off to individuals with new born babies. was not until the year 1993 that the United States passed its initial Family and Medical Leave Act. The Act was flawed from the beginning as it only provided individuals who work full time, for over a year, job protection when time is taken off due to family of medical emergencies. The Family and Medical Leave Act gave full time employees a 12- work week time off if needed with the guarantee of job protection. There is no section of the Family and Medical Leave Act that also guarantees paid time off for individuals. Only small changes to the Act have occurred since 1993. Small changes including in 2008 where spouses of individuals in the military can take time off and in 2015 the Act started coverage of domestic partnerships. The map below shows countries around the world and what countries offer paid maternal and paternal leave. As you can see, The United States is one of a few countries that offers no paid leave at all.

An independent variable is the amount of time a caregiver spends with a child after it is born. A dependent variable is the overall proper development of the new born child. The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders found that “The first three years of life, when the brain is developing and maturing, is the most intensive period for acquiring speech and language skills. There appear to be critical periods for speech and language development in infants and young children when the brain is best able to absorb language. If these critical periods can pass without exposure to language, it will be more difficult to learn (Developmental Milestones, 2017).”

While using the GSS data explorer I searched in the “keyword” box child. I cam across two different variable names. The first was paidlv meaning paid leave for childcare. The second was careprov meaning who should provide care for children under school age.

The question asked for paid leave for childcare was “Consider a couple who both work full-time and now have a new born child. One of them stops working for some time to care for their child. Do you think there should be paid leave available and, if so, for how long?”

The question asked for who should provide childcare to under school age children was “People have different views on childcare for children under school age. Who do you think should primarily provide childcare?”

I chose these variables because they pertain to my topic that I am interested in studying. Both paid leave and providing care relate to family leave and parental leave. I believe there is a correlation because studies have show that the longer a parent spends with a new born child the increased chances the new born will develop properly.

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POST 2 – Rick I am choosing divorce rates in the United States and the data available on the GSS 2012 website.  The research question that I would like to pose is if divorce is the best solution to marital problems? As an older individual I can honestly say that I never even heard the word “divorce” growing up as it just was either not talked about in front of children, or it was a rare occurrence. It seems that research has indicated that divorce seems to be the simple answer for many married couples that do not want to put the work needed to maintain a marriage. According to this research, the divorce rate in the United States has been increasing steadily for the last century, from 7% of first marriages in 1880 to over 50% in recent decades (Weed, 1980). Even though the divorce rate leveled off in the 1980s, current estimates indicate that nearly two-thirds (64%) of all first marriages will end in divorce or permanent separation (Martin & Bumpass, 1989). Currently, more than one million children experience parental divorce every year in this country (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1989, p. 92). This increase in the likelihood of marital disruption, and the large number of children involved, has generated public concern about the consequences of divorce for children's wellbeing. . People who hold traditional attitudes believe that a two-parent family is necessary to ensure children's successful socialization and development

For my search I typed in “divorce” and came up 3 matching criteria in which I chose “divbest” which posed the question associated with this variable:

“Do you agree or disagree  Divorce is usually the best solution when a couple can''t seem to work out their marriage problems.” This variable offered a chart that ranged from strongly agree to not applicable and the number of respondent’s choice.  A dependent variable for this research would be the choice of divorce itself, while the independent variable would be the effect on children or the adjustment(s) to the divorce.

Another choice that popped up in the GSS 2012 search was the variable “divkids” which indicated  “Kids better if bad marriage ended by divorce”  The question posed with this variable was “When a marriage is troubled and unhappy, do you think it is generally better for the children if the couple stays together or gets divorced?”

I also chose the variable “divnow” which stood for “How easy is it to get a divorce today?” and posed the question “In general, would you say that the law now makes it easy or difficult for people who want to get divorced?” In addition, I also examined the variable “divifkd1” which stood for “Should feuding parents stay together for kids”

These choices in variables will help to support my research for my final portfolio and address the trend of divorce as an answer to marital problems as well as the lasting effects on the children.