Report on low income White, black and Hispanic female headed households and their children, living in poverty in the USA - deals with marital status, child care, health, educational level, wages, income, employment, employment opportunity, state aid programmes and training programmes, sex discrimination; emphasizes the problem of unequal opportunity and unequal pay. Tables.

In the tradition of the Policy Studies Review Annual series, Volume Eight continues to offer the best of recent writing and analysis in a number of policy relevant area. Indeed, reflecting the shifting nature of policy debates and public attention, Volume Eight has introduced seven entirely new substantive areas, including such sensitive issues as the viability of the "safety net," information policy, work and labor policy, immigration policy, and environmental policy. The volume is also characterized by explicit attention to two critical aspects of the policy analysis craft--the strengths and weaknesses of various methodological approaches and the role noneconomic factors should play in economic policy analysis. Drawing from such public sector administrators as William Ruckelshaus and Eleanor Chelimsky, academic policy analysts such as Martin Feldstein and Irving Louis horowitz, and two congressional support agencies (CBO and GAO), the volume provides the most timely and relevant assessments of current policy issues. It also provides the reader with a framework within which to approach substantie areas as widely disparate as national security and health care. The volume is an indispensible tool for those who seek to sort through the confusions and contradictions of present policy statements in order to gain a cogent view of how these and other issues are framed and what viable policy options are available. , Contents (partial): METHODS FOR POLICY ANALYSIS--S. Rosen, S. Tolchin, D. McCaffrey, J. Hall, P. Dommel, S. Kelman; NONECONOMIC FACTORS IN ECONOMIC POLICY MAKING--A. Etzioni, A. Bhattacharya, J. Fel-dman, M. Fedstein; THE SAFETY NET AS PUBLIC POLICY--Congressional Budget Office, C. Murray, U.S. General Accounting Office, R. Struyk, R.K. Weaver; WORK AND LABOR POLICY--S. Levitan, D. Bresnik, L. Datta; HEALTH POLICY AND COST CONTAINMENT--V. Fuchs, B.B. Torrey, J. Lave; DEFENSE AND NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY--S. Deitchman, H. Brown, R. Art, D. Robertson, J. Steinbruner, I.L. Horowitz, C. Danopoulos; INFORMATION POLICY--E. Chelimsky, L. Perlman, R.J. Perlman, P. Lengyel; ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY--W. Ruckelshaus, M. Kraft, N. Vig, R.C. Kearney, J.J. Stucker, W.K. Viscusi; IMMIGRATION POLICY--R. Mines, P. Martin, E Bean, T. Sullivan, D.G. Papademetriou.

Looks at the theory and practice of privatization internationally through case studies of the US, Canada, New Zealand, Great Britain, West Germany, France, Sweden and Chile. Among the sectors of health care examined are public and private hospitals, mental health care, prepaid health plans. and the multinational pharmaceutical industry. A report from the Foundation for Health Services Research. Commissioned essays by leading scholars provide an account of what health services research aims to do, what the breadth of the effort has been, and what the research has accomplished. Volume editor Ginzberg (director, Conservation of Human Resources, Columbia U.) introduces the subject with an overview of health services research and its relation to health policy and concludes with thoughts on future research needs. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR