A Generation At Risk

An insightful study on children orphaned as a result of the AIDS epidemic with a Foreword by Desmond Tutu.

Just what do we know about the current generation of young Americans? So little it seems that we have dubbed them Generation X. Coming of age in the 1980s and '90s, they hail from families in flux, from an intimate landscape changing faster and more profoundly than ever before. This book is the first to give us a clear, close-up picture of these young Americans and to show how they have been affected and formed by the tremendous domestic changes of the last three decades. How have members of this generation fared at school and at work, as they have moved into the world and formed families of their own? Do their struggles or successes reflect the turbulence of their time? These are the questions A Generation at Risk answers in comprehensive detail. Based on a unique fifteen-year study begun in 1980, the book considers parents' socioeconomic resources, their gender roles and relations, and the quality and stability of their marriages. It then examines children's relations with their parents, their intimate and broader social affiliations, and their psychological well-being. The authors provide rare insight into how both familial and historical contexts affect young people as they make the transition to adulthood. Perhaps surprising is the authors' finding that, in this era of shifting gender roles, children who grow up in traditional father-breadwinner, mother-homemaker families and those in more egalitarian, role-sharing families apparently turn out the same. Also striking are the beneficial influence of parental education on children and the troubling long-term impact of marital conflict and divorce--an outcome that prompts the authors to suggest policy measures that encourage marital quality and stability. Table of Contents: Family, Social Change, and Transition to Adulthood Study Design, Measures, and Analysis Relationships with Parents Intimate Relationships Social Integration Socioeconomic Attainment Psychological Well-Being Conclusions, Implications, and Policy Recommendations Appendix: Tables References Index Reviews of this book: An important new book...Paul Amato and Alan Booth painstakingly analyze data from a large national sample of families, seeking especially to isolate the independent effects of divorce on children from the effects of preexisting marital conflict. The results call into question the rationalizations of our high divorce rate...Amato and Booth estimate that at most a third of divorces involving children are so distressed that the children are likely to benefit. The remainder, about 70%, involve low-conflict marriages that apparently harm children much less than do the realities of divorce...This remarkably countercultural conclusion will provoke many predictable reminders about toxic marriages and many repetitions of the familiar bromide that marital unhappiness, not 'divorce per se' is the real problem. But because of this book, we also will have a more informed discussion of the moral dimensions of the decision to divorce. Amato and Booth have helped us to recognize more clearly the potential conflicts between parental responsibility and adult desires for freedom, romance, sexual gratification and self-actualization. --Norval D. Glenn and David Blankenhorn, Los Angeles Times Reviews of this book: [This] longitudinal study of the consequences of family instability and change in the USA...focused upon two generations--the parents and their offspring--and looked at how the relations between them changed over the survey time...[The] study provides an excellent opportunity to test some favorite popular assumptions--such as whether witnessing unhappiness in the parental home would lead to the inability to have happy relationships in one's own home. Or does having a 'liberated' or non-traditional mother harm children's development? The advantage of a longitudinal study is that we can examine these differences on the same people over time...This study would be of relevance to youth researchers interested in the 'life course' perspective as it provides a range of data and information of a kind which is seldom normally available...This is a well organized and documented study discussing quantitative findings in an accessible and enlightening way. --Claire Wallace, Journal of Youth Studies Reviews of this book: A Generation at Risk summarizes [Amato and Booth's] pioneering longitudinal study which, between 1980 and 1992, interviewed a representative sample of 1,193 married persons with children. Amato and Booth also interviewed the adult children in 1992 and 1995. The book uses the life-course perspective and considers the impact of changing historical contexts on these families. It is intended for professionals, although the conclusions are vital to anyone who has even a passing interest in changes in contemporary families...This landmark work will frame scholarly discussions of parent-child dynamics for many years and belongs in every major library. --Larry R. Peterson, History Reviews of this book: This important and disturbing book...carefully examines how parents' socioeconomic resources, gender roles, and degree of marital happiness affect their children's lives...It strikes a resounding note of alarm at recent trends in American family life. The work is based on the results of a finely drawn 15-year study of a nationwide sampling of married couples and their adult offspring. There are no glittering generalizations here; Amato and Booth provide rich contextual detail and easily readable tables as they consider, for example, the effect of maternal employment on daughters' social integration (largely positive)...Public libraries should not be deterred by this book's scholarly presentation: it speaks to us all. --Ellen Gilbert, Library Journal Reviews of this book: What are the long-term effects on children of the great changes in the family that have occurred over the past several decades?...Paul Amato and Alan Booth's impressive study is one of the first to provide us with long-term data on this generation...Theirs is one of the few longitudinal surveys to measure marital quality and then to follow offspring for a long period, during which some of the parents divorce...A Generation at Risk is an important addition to the literature on the long-term effects of families on their children. --Andrew J. Cherlin, American Journal of Sociology

A Generation at Risk brings up-to-date and insightful perspectives from experienced practitioners and researchers on how a better future can be secured for the millions of children who are being orphaned or made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS. The current situation of these children is grim, and while there has been significant action in the last few years by governments, international organizations, religious bodies, and nongovernmental organizations, the vast majority of children made vulnerable by AIDS have not benefited from any assistance from beyond their own extended family and community. A Gen.

As seen in Time, USA TODAY, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and on CBS This Morning, BBC, PBS, CNN, and NPR, iGen is crucial reading to understand how the children, teens, and young adults born in the mid-1990s and later are vastly different from their Millennial predecessors, and from any other generation. With generational divides wider than ever, parents, educators, and employers have an urgent need to understand today’s rising generation of teens and young adults. Born in the mid-1990s up to the mid-2000s, iGen is the first generation to spend their entire adolescence in the age of the smartphone. With social media and texting replacing other activities, iGen spends less time with their friends in person—perhaps contributing to their unprecedented levels of anxiety, depression, and loneliness. But technology is not the only thing that makes iGen distinct from every generation before them; they are also different in how they spend their time, how they behave, and in their attitudes toward religion, sexuality, and politics. They socialize in completely new ways, reject once sacred social taboos, and want different things from their lives and careers. More than previous generations, they are obsessed with safety, focused on tolerance, and have no patience for inequality. With the first members of iGen just graduating from college, we all need to understand them: friends and family need to look out for them; businesses must figure out how to recruit them and sell to them; colleges and universities must know how to educate and guide them. And members of iGen also need to understand themselves as they communicate with their elders and explain their views to their older peers. Because where iGen goes, so goes our nation—and the world.

Risk management is no longer confined solely to risk management specialists. Stakeholders ranging from employees to investors must understand how to quantify the tradeoffs of risk against the potential return. The failure to understand the essential nature of risk can have devastating consequences. Globally renowned risk and corporate governance experts Michel Crouhy, Dan Galai, and Robert Mark have updated and streamlined their bestselling professional reference Risk Management to introduce you to the world of risk management without requiring you to know the intricate formulas and mathematical details. The Essentials of Risk Management is the first book to make even the most sophisticated risk management approaches simultaneously accessible to both risk and non risk professionals. It will help you to: Increase the transparency of your risk management program to satisfy shareholders, employees, regulators, and other important constituencies Keep on top of the continuing evolution of best-practice risk policies and methodologies and associated risk infrastructures Implement and efficiently communicate an organization-wide Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) approach that encompasses market, credit, liquidity, operational, legal and regulatory, business, strategic and reputation risks Navigate thorny areas including risk policies, risk methodologies, economic capital, regulatory capital, performance measurement, asset-liability management, and more Efficiently allocate limited corporate resources to comply with the new generation of risk regulation and corporate governance regulation As a non-risk professional or board member, you are being called on more than ever before to make sophisticated assessments of your organization's risk exposures as well as play a critical role in its formal risk management process. The Essentials of Risk Management tells you what you need to know to succeed in this challenging new environment.

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Written by an experienced academic and practitioner, Operational Risk Management fills a gap in the information available on the Basel 2 Accord and offers valuable insights into the nature of operational risk.