• Use of Theory in Analyzing Financial Decision-making in Immigrant Asian Families
  Presented by: Blendine P. Hawkins, Yaliu He

• Using Economic Sociology to Understand Child Care Choices
  Presented by: Anna C. Colaner

Use of Theory in Analyzing Financial Decision-making in Immigrant Asian Families
Presented by: Blendine P. Hawkins, Yaliu He

The evolving economic landscape and growing Asian population in the United States necessitates that family social scientist develop increased knowledge about aspects unique to collectivistic societies that contribute to financial decision-making in these Asian immigrant families. This article presents a synthesis of three family theories, a framework consisting of symbolic interactionism, family systems theory and social exchange theory, to examine how culture and acculturation impacts the financial decision-making of immigrant Asian families. Using this framework, a better understanding in the areas of perceived power, family connections and interactions, and gender and family structure can be reached in interpreting Asian families’ financial behaviors and decision-making process.

Using Economic Sociology to Understand Child Care Choices
Presented by: Anna C. Colaner

Parents choose and providers offer child care provisions of varying organizational types and levels of quality. I use new institutional theory from sociology to provide new understandings of child care market decisions. I first review existing child care literature to argue that two institutional logics coexist in the market, resulting in different ways of thinking about and organizing child care provisions: the institutional logic of the family and the institutional logic of education. I provide an initial test of this idea with secondary data from NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD). I use a multinomial logit model to test for organizational, caregiver, and mother characteristics that associate with either logic. I use these results of this study to inform the design of new study to begin in Spring 2012. These primary data will allow me to examine the logics more directly and to explore additional sociological ideas, such how different subgroups in the market come to define child care quality. My results can help policymaker and practitioners better appreciate the multiple perspectives that exist in the market about whether, where, and how child care should be provided so that better programs and policies might be implemented.