A benefit of one's own: older women's entitlement to Social Security retirement.

This article explores differences in Social Security eligibility and benefit levels for older men and women using survey data from the Health and Retirement Study combined with administrative records on actual work histories and Social Security rules. We are able to determine the fully insured status of those persons, how close they are to meeting eligibility criteria when they are not fully insured, and their prospects for benefits. Around three-quarters of older women nearing retirement today will be fully insured for Social Security old-age benefits on the basis of their own accounts, but the rest would need substantial extra employment to rise above the eligibility threshold. Further, two-thirds of older married women who are fully insured have sufficient lifetime earnings to translate into an age-65 primary insurance amount worth at least half their husband's, but the other one-third can expect no additional retirement benefit from contributing to Social Security late in life. Finally, most wives will not be able to improve their benefits by working more under current rules. These results have mixed implications regarding the potential impact of women's rising labor force attachment on eventual retirement benefits. Working more years could increase women's chances of becoming eligible for Social Security benefits, but that effect is likely to be small. Furthermore, even when women do become fully insured according to the rules, not many wives will receive a higher benefit at the margin. The reason is that married women still receive higher Social Security benefits as a spouse than they do on the basis of their own work record. In fact, the net benefit from Social Security due to additional work is negative once one takes into account the Social Security contributions the women paid while employed. Benefits paid to widows are even more likely to be based on the spouse's work history rather than on the woman's. Hence, the rising labor market attachment of women in the future may increase their eligibility for benefits but will produce only modest (and often negative) impacts on their old-age Social Security benefits under current rules.     

Intimate Partner Violence,Psychological Distress,and Suicidality: A Path Model Using Data from African American Women Seeking Care in an Urban Emergency Department

Intimate partner violence (IPV) and suicidal behavior are major public health problems in the African American community. This study investigated whether or not IPV and suicidal ideation are correlated in urban African American women, and if the IPV–suicidal ideation link is explained by symptoms of depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). With 323 abused African American females, path analysis revealed that: (1) IPV → depressive symptoms → suicidal ideation, and (2) IPV → PTSD symptoms → depressive symptoms → suicidal ideation. When evaluating abused women, depressive and PTSD symptoms and suicidal thoughts must be assessed. Interventions for reducing suicidal behavior in abused, low income African American women should reduce symptoms of depression and PTSD.     

Establishing New Advertising Self‐regulatory Schemes: A Comparison of the UK and Australian Approaches

Advertising is the most visible element of modern marketing, and an important component of trading. It is also an activity often accused by its critics of being intrusive and pervasive. Such accusations are not easily refuted by a worldwide industry which spends billions of dollars each year reaching and persuading its target markets through daily bombardment of thousands of ads in most developed countries. When advertising does offend, mislead, or is untruthful, a structure needs to be in place in order to provide protection to all parties and, in most cases, a country's legal system is complemented by a self‐regulatory scheme. Self‐regulation is a common approach to controlling conduct or behaviour in society and, indeed, Australian advertisers have opted for this system of control for more than 60 years.