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The purpose of this study was to investigate the similarities and differences in single‐ and dual‐parent family households in their selection and acquisition of children's clothing. Respondents included 247 parents of students enrolled in grades K‐12. Significant differences were found in the following items considered. Lack of money was more of a problem for single‐parent families than for dual‐parent families, p = 0.002. Single‐parent families paid for clothing more often by cheque or cash than did dual‐parent families, p=0.009; dual‐parent families used store credit cards more frequently than single‐parent families, p=0.03. No significant differences were found in sources, important purchase factors or satisfaction when selecting and acquiring children's clothing. For all parents, the four most important factors considered when selecting children's clothing were fit, what the parent likes, care required and price. Please note that in the US most children begin school at age 5 in kindergarten (K); ele‐mentary school continues through age 10 at grade 5; middle school encompasses ages 11–13 in grades 6–8; and high school includes ages 14–17 in grades 9–12.

The proportion of traditional family households with two parents has been steadily declining, in large part due to an increase in the female‐headed single parent family – the largest growing family type. Reports on a study to test hypotheses that differences exist between female‐headed single parent families′ and two parent families′ food purchasing patterns. Examines the frequency of use of convenience foods and restaurants and restaurant spending levels, to determine if there are differences between the two family types. Reveals that similar purchasing patterns exist between the household structures and suggests potential marketing implications of this finding.

Social welfare scholarship has not paid adequate attention to the phenomenon of single-parent women in Asia, especially in terms of their economic and social vulnerabilities. This study aims to explore the strategies employed by women who are single parents to secure their families from socioeconomic issues. It also delves into the experiences and viewpoints of families regarding the social institutions they turn to for assistance during times of hardship – whether it be the state, market, or informal networks.

The data were collected through 33 semi-structured interviews, with informants selected using the purposive sampling technique in South Sumatra Province, Indonesia, from February 2023 to July 2023. This number was obtained based on informants who were included in the criteria the researchers determined, which included “being a female single parent” and “being over the age of 17,” which is the minimum age for Indonesians to marry. Others included “having dependents to support, be they children and/or the respondent’s family” and occupying the main role as “household head” – all of which defined whether someone belongs to the “vulnerable group.”

The study highlights the significance of informal support for single mothers facing economic hardship. Still, overreliance on it can lead to concerns about the sustainability of the everyday social safety net they receive. Social exclusion is also problematic due to societal assumptions about divorce and widowhood. The last highlight is how 'deskilling' among single parents has complicated the challenges women face to re-enter the workforce.

This study’s outcomes provide crucial insights into analyzing the patterns of single-parent families in Indonesia and serve as a framework for further research on the resilience of single parents in developing countries.

Children – their number, their welfare, their property (whom they belong to), their education – have long been a matter of public concern. What a “proper” childhood should be is always a highly politicized issue never left entirely in private hands. Modern societies in particular have rendered explicit and institutionalized the existence of a public interest in children and in childhood as constituted within, but also outside, families. In this volume, we use the expression “politicizing of childhood” in a broad sense in reference to the ways in which childhood is conceptualized not only as a primary family or parental responsibility, but, in addition, as a matter of public importance and concern, something for (welfare) state intervention. “Politicizing of childhood” encompasses the public motivation and mobilization for childhood change; the political processes in which policies are formulated, legislated and enacted; the response to policy interventions that may in turn feed back into public and political discourse, policy formulation and so on (see Ellingsæter & Leira, 2006, p. 4). The contributions in this volume illustrate one or more of these processes.

Research studies indicate African American males face multiple and reinforcing obstacles by choosing to pursue science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) related majors and professions. Though participation in STEM fields has increased, African American males remain underrepresented in STEM academic programs and occupations as a whole, and in the computing sciences specifically. In the STEM field of computing sciences, isolation, inadequate advisement, among other complex factors, perpetuate the underrepresentation and low persistence of African American males in academic programs. Utilizing viable social identity and communities of practice as theoretical underpinnings, this qualitative study into the lives of aspiring and current African American male computer scientists produced findings that illuminate the significance of what I call STEMfluences, or social interactions that promote socialization, STEM identity, confidence, and success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics related disciplines like the computing sciences, and promote persistence through degree attainment in homogeneous, unwelcoming STEM academic environments. These STEMfluences are social constructs that include positive peer interactions and modeling, parental and familial nurturing, and multifaceted mentorship.

The purpose of this study is to explore the experiences of parents who have full professorial positions (in faculties of engineering and nursing) in universities in Ontario, Canada, with a particular focus on the ways in which gender shapes professors' parenting experiences.

We employ a case study methodology involving quantitative and qualitative data collected from a survey emailed to full professors in Ontario.

Data from the study reveal that numerous strategies, resources (e.g. informal social support networks, supportive partners) and institutional supports (i.e. pausing the tenure clock after child birth) are required to assist academics to meet the extensive demands of their positions, while they perform caregiving responsibilities for their children.

The protected ground of family status is inconsistently applied in Canadian human rights policy, considerably reducing its transformative potential. Yet, while family status gains greater recognition in rights-based practice, we argue that it be added to forthcoming institutional equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) action plans across post-secondary institutions to better ensure equity for mothers who shoulder significant paid and unpaid work responsibilities.

While there is literature on parenting in academia, family status is rarely featured as an intersection of interest in EDI research. This article aims to fill this gap.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the body of knowledge associated with consumer socialisation. The authors investigate how children function as socialisation agents for their parents in influencing their purchase intentions of computer and high‐tech products – essentially the idea of the young educating the old.

A review of the extant literature relating to consumer socialisation, social power and knowledge about computer related and small high‐tech products yielded meaningful hypotheses. A structured survey which was required to be completed by dyads (i.e. children and parents) was mailed to Australian families in the state of Victoria. Data obtained from 180 usable responses from the dyads were analysed to test the hypotheses.

Children are seen to possess expert power over their parents with regards to computer related and small high‐tech products; which make them an important agent of secondary socialisation for their parents. Men are perceived as being more knowledgeable than women, a phenomenon which leads mothers to be more inclined to seek their children's (son's in particular) advice.

This study implies that when children are seen as experts by their parents, they become important agents of secondary socialisation. However, this only relates to the consumption of the product categories studied here. Future research needs to include other product categories in order to assess the validity of the measures.

Marketers of computer related and small high‐tech products can benefit from the findings when promoting these products to children and parents.

This research study is unique in Australia and possibly globally.

One of the most important changes in the past few decades influencing the way in which early childhood is experienced in European countries is the dramatic increase of mothers with young children who are also active in the paid labour force. The Dutch case is exemplary of this change. Dutch women's labour force participation increased from internationally the lowest rate for married women at 7.3% in 1960, to 32.8% in 1987 and to 58.7% in 2005. The latter was above the average participation rate in the European Union (15 countries) (Statistics Netherlands, CBS, 2006). In addition, the proportion of employed mothers with children below the age of 6 more than doubled in less than a decade: from 26% in 1988 to 57% in 1996 (OSA, 1997).¹ In 2003, 90% of women in the Netherlands remained in the labour force after giving birth to their first child, although they worked fewer hours (Statistics Netherlands, CBS, 2006). Children who are born in the Netherlands nowadays, therefore, generally have a mother working in the labour market, who has to organise her time around the triple needs of care, income and professional demands. This substantial change from the situation still prevalent in the mid-eighties, is somewhat counter-balanced by changes in fathers’ behaviour following the birth of a child. While in most European countries fathers increase their labour force participation when they have a child (see e.g. Plantenga & Siegel, 2004), an increasing proportion of Dutch fathers on the contrary reduces it. 10% of first-time fathers reduced their working hours when their child was born in 1997, 13% did so in 2003 (Statistics Netherlands, CBS, 2006).²