This book provides an up-to-date look at the consumer movement and the intricacies of consumer behavior. It addresses who buys what, how, when, and why. It also looks at the forces that impact consumer choice in an ever-changing and often turbulent world–all using a balanced textbook/casebook approach. This edition emphasizes the consumer power model, includes more on personal finance and reflects the latest consumption shifts and impact consumers have on product development, advertising, packaging and promotion.
A new analysis using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Studies-Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K), a nationally-representative sample of children entering kindergarten in 1998, found that the local cost of living is correlated with child development outcomes. Higher cost of living was related to lower academic achievement in first grade, even after controlling for family income and a comprehensive set of social and demographic variables. This effect was found only for families with incomes below 300% of the federal poverty threshold (i.e., below $66,339 for a family of four). It may be that families with higher incomes are not as sensitive to geographic variations in cost of living.
Family Resource Management unlocks the complexity of family decision making for students, enabling them to grasp both the concepts and the underlying explanations of family behavior. Authors Tami James Moore and Sylvia M. Asay have provided a strong theoretical base to facilitate both understanding and retention and have organized the text to parallel the decision-making process employed by professionals. As a result, it includes sections on introducing the study of family resource management, identifying family needs, understanding resources available to families in differing socioeconomic circumstances, evaluating alternatives and making choices, and implementing and evaluating decisions.
The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs just published their first online newsletter for 2011 including news that impacts families globally.
by Maria J. Kefalas, Ph.D., Saint Joseph’s University, and Patrick Carr, Ph.D. Rutgers University
Increasingly, demographers and policymakers warn that the future of the nation's small towns lies in their ability to attract enough educated and professionally-trained young people to keep their communities viable. After all, a new birth cannot replace one of its young people-particularly the ones with a college degree-who head off to the big city in search of better jobs and brighter opportunities. Without enough young people to purchase homes, hold jobs, pay taxes, and raise children, communities cannot survive.
"...no argument can stand that supports unequal opportunity or any intrinsic disqualification for sharing in the whole of life," wrote anthropologist Margaret Mead. Articles in this issue of NCFR Report-which complements the annual conference theme-explore inequalities that affect families. Some are external and lead to poverty and lack of civic participation. Others exist within the family itself as a result of divorce or gender roles.
