Maternal Work–Family Conflict and Psychological Distress: Reciprocal Relationships Over 8 Years

The relationships between employed mothers' work–family conflict and psychological distress are unlikely to be static or one way. Using longitudinal data, the authors investigated reciprocal effects between work–family conflict and psychological distress across 8 years of the family life cycle. They modeled cross‐lagged structural equations over 5 biennial waves of data, in 4 overlapping samples of Australian mothers reentering work between child ages 0–1 to 8–9 (N range: 1,027–2,449). The findings revealed that work–family conflict and psychological distress are distinctive aspects of mothers' well‐being that influence each other over time. Reciprocal influences were not confined to one period of parenting but continued as children grew older. Associations persisted after controlling for a range of work and family characteristics, and there was no evidence of mediation by family socioeconomic status, maternal age, or job quality. The findings suggest that employed mothers may benefit from policies and workplace practices that both promote maternal well‐being and reduce conflicts between employment and raising children.     

Family‐Supportive Organizational Culture and Fathers' Experiences of Work–family Conflict in Sweden

This study explores fathers' experiences with work–family conflict and their perceptions of how supportive the organizational culture at work is regarding fathers' work–family needs, and whether a family‐supportive organizational culture is associated with less work–family conflict. A total of 377 fathers working in private Swedish companies were surveyed. While a modest proportion of fathers experienced high levels of work‐to‐family conflict, less family‐to‐work conflict was reported. Further, fathers perceived little work–family support from top managers, supervisors, and co‐workers. Our results indicate that the cultures in the examined companies have norms that separate work and family from each other. Fathers seem likely to experience work–family conflict as long as the family‐supportive organizational culture, especially at the work group level, is not well‐developed. When fathers experience their work organizations as family‐supportive, they are likely to be better able to combine work and family and thus to help Swedes achieve a more gender‐equal society.     

Work Hours,Schedules, and Insufficient Sleep Among Mothers and Their Young Children

Studies have linked parents' employment, work hours, and work schedules to their own sleep quality and quantity, but it is unclear whether these associations extend to children. The authors used data from the 5‐year in‐home survey of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 1,818) to examine the associations between maternal work hours and schedule and insufficient sleep among disadvantaged mothers and their young children. They found that mothers who worked more than 35 hours per week were more likely to experience insufficient sleep compared to mothers who worked fewer hours, whereas children were more likely to experience insufficient sleep when their mothers worked between 20 and 40 hours. Nonstandard work schedules were associated with an increased likelihood of insufficient sleep for mothers but not their children. The results highlight a potentially difficult balance between work and family for many disadvantaged working mothers in the United States.     

Interparental Incongruence in Differential Treatment of Adolescent Siblings: Links With Marital Quality

This study examined longitudinal links between incongruence in mothers’ versus fathers’ differential treatment of adolescent‐age siblings and parents’ marital quality. Multilevel models including 200 families, over four waves, spaced across 6 years tested whether youth perceptions of incongruence in differential intimacy and conflict predicted trajectories of mothers’ and fathers’ reports of marital conflict and satisfaction and vice versa. Analyses showed that changes in interparental incongruence covaried longitudinally with changes in marital quality and that these linkages became stronger over time. These results extend previous cross‐sectional research with younger children and are consistent with theories regarding family alliances and coparenting. Discussion focuses on the reciprocal relations between incongruence in parenting and marital quality as an important aspect of family systems.     

Interparental Agreement on Family Functioning Within Chinese Families

Although many studies have investigated the concordance of parent and adolescent perspectives on family functioning, little research has been conducted on concordance between parents’ perspectives. In this study the authors investigated this issue in China. Each parent of 729 children attending elementary schools in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, completed a set of questionnaires including a version of the Chinese Family Assessment Instrument (C-FAI). Mother and father concordance was medium to strong for four of the five C-FAI subscales, suggesting that parents were generally in agreement with each other in their perceptions of family functioning. However, mothers reported significantly more family conflict than fathers when their child was a girl, and fathers reported significantly more control problems than mothers when the child was a boy. The findings are discussed in relation to the limitations of the study and the need for future research.     

Feeling Rushed: Gendered Time Quality,Work Hours,Nonstandard Work Schedules,and Spousal Crossover

The authors investigated gender differences in couple parents' subjective time pressure, using detailed Australian time use data (n=756 couples with minor children). They examined how family demand, employment hours, and nonstandard work schedules of both partners relate to each spouse's non‐employment time quality (“pure” leisure, “contaminated” leisure, multitasking housework, and child care) and subjective feelings of being rushed or pressed for time. Mothers averaged more contaminated leisure and less pure leisure and did much more unpaid work multitasking than fathers. These results suggest that these differences in time quality do partially account for mothers feeling more rushed than fathers. Weekend work was associated with mothers having less pure leisure, but not contaminated leisure. The opposite was found for fathers. Spousal work characteristics also related to time use and feeling rushed in gendered ways, with male long work hours positively associated with higher time pressure for mothers as well as the fathers who worked them.     

Daily Spillover of Low‐Income Mothers' Perceived Workload to Mood and Mother–Child Interactions

This study investigated associations of low‐income working mothers' daily perceived workload and their reports of their own mood and their interactions with their young children. Sixty‐one mothers were asked to report on their workload, mood, and interactions with their preschool‐age children every day for 2 weeks (N = 520 work days). Low‐income mothers reported significant day‐to‐day variability in workload. The results revealed a curvilinear pattern of negative work‐to‐family spillover: Both lower‐than‐average and higher‐than‐average workload days were associated with increased negative and tired mood, decreased positive mood, and increased harsh mother–child interactions. Although both younger and older mothers experienced a curvilinear pattern of spillover to daily mood, younger mothers in the period of emerging adulthood also experienced spillover to mother–child interactions, perhaps because they are still learning how to balance work and family demands. Both high and low workload are salient stressors in the daily lives of low‐wage working mothers.     

Work and Family: How Does the (Gender) Balance Change as Children Grow?

This article investigates how work–family balance and the gender division of labour differ according to whether children are in early childhood, middle childhood or the early teen years. It uses measures of both behaviour and attitudes, drawing on two nationally representative Australian data sets, the Bureau of Statistics Time Use Survey and the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia. Women have more responsibility for care than men, but with older children there is greater gender equity in the division of labour, a less pressing domestic burden and less maternal time stress. This occurs because women recalibrate their commitments to work and home, not because domestic labour is redistributed between mothers and fathers. Further, it does not hold if women replace unpaid with paid labour; mothers who work full time have high total workloads and high stress levels regardless of the age of children. Fathers are more satisfied with their work–family balance the more they participate in childcare and the more they feel supported by their workplace to access family‐friendly work policies.     

Do Young Mothers and Fathers Differ in the Likelihood of Returning Home?

Building on research examining “boomerang” adult children, the author examines multigenerational living among young parents. Returning home likely differs between young mothers and fathers given variation in socioeconomic characteristics, health and risk taking, their own children's coresidence, and union stability. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97), the author finds that more than 40% of young parents (n = 2,721) live with their own parents at their first child's birth or subsequently. Mothers are generally less likely to move home than fathers but only when not controlling for child coresidence and union stability. Individuals who live with all their children are less likely to return home, and controlling for child coresidence reverses gender differences, though this association disappears in the full model. Young parents who are stably single and those who experience dissolution are highly likely to return home compared to the stably partnered, with the association significantly stronger for fathers than mothers.     

Ambivalence Toward Adult Children: Differences Between Mothers and Fathers

The authors examined how ambivalence toward adult children within the same family differs between mothers and fathers and whether patterns of maternal and paternal ambivalence can be explained by the same set of predictors. Using data collected in the Within‐Family Differences Study, they compared older married mothers' and fathers' (N = 129) assessments of ambivalence toward each of their adult children (N = 444). Fathers reported higher levels of ambivalence overall. Both mothers and fathers reported lower ambivalence toward children who were married, better educated, and who they perceived to hold similar values; however, the effects of marital status and education were more pronounced for fathers, whereas the effect of children's value congruence was more pronounced for mothers. Fathers reported lower ambivalence toward daughters than sons, whereas mothers reported less ambivalence toward sons than daughters.     

Childhood Obesity Differences in Single-Father and Single-Mother Families

ABSTRACT

Prior research consistently finds that children living in two-parent families are less likely to be obese than children in single-parent families. Most of the research that explores the relationship between family structure and childhood obesity is limited in its conceptualization of family structure, however, either ignoring single-father families or bunching them in the same category as single-mother families. Research on gender and families suggests that single fathers are different from single mothers in ways that may influence a child’s risk of obesity. We use data from the kindergarten wave of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998–1999 to explore differences in obesity rates for young children in single-father and single-mother families. Compared to single mothers, single fathers earn more and provide a slightly healthier home environment (less TV watching and more sharing of meals) but are more likely to work outside the home full-time. Children in single-father families are also more likely to be white and have fewer siblings. These differences counteract one another, resulting in similar levels of obesity in these two types of single-parent families.     

German fathers and their preferences for shorter working hours for family reasons

This study is among the first to analyze fathers’ preference for shorter working hours specifying that the preference is related to the wish to spend more time with the family. Assuming that preferences are context-dependent, this article explores the relevance of the family and workplace context for preference formation. We develop need-based and capability-based arguments to contrast the job demands–resources approach and the capabilities approach in work–family research. Using a sample of 632 fathers from the German LEEP-B3 data with a representative linked employer–employee design for large work organizations we conclude that fathers’ preferences for shorter working hours are indeed context-dependent and that there is more evidence for need-based arguments than opportunity based arguments. Our results indicate that fathers with young children and fathers with high work demands are more likely to desire shorter working hours, whereas a reduction in working hours appears to be unnecessary for fathers who can satisfactorily reconcile work and family life through support from their supervisors. In contrast to capability-based arguments the perception of a highly demanding work culture was not found to decrease but increase the likelihood to desire to work shorter hours.     

Fathers' employment in a father-friendly welfare state: does fatherhood affect men's working hours?

An important aim of Norwegian work–family policies is to enhance the family role of fathers. Time-use surveys show a slight increase in fathers’ family work, but we still know little about the relationship between men's family circumstances and working hours. On the one hand, policy measures encourage the greater involvement of fathers in family life. On the other hand, men are the main providers in most couples and employment and breadwinning are still important components of men's fathering identity. In this paper, we examine the relationship between fatherhood and working time, with a particular focus on the possible effects of the number and ages of children. Utilizing the Norwegian Labour Force Survey 2005, we find that men's contractual working hours are not significantly affected by their parental status, but men do curtail their actual working hours when they have young children, and particularly if there is only one child in the household. However, men with school-aged children actually work longer hours than non-fathers and men with young children.     

Parenthood,Gender and Work‐Family Time in the United States,Australia, Italy,France, and Denmark

Research has associated parenthood with greater daily time commitments for fathers and mothers than for childless men and women, and with deeper gendered division of labor in households. How do these outcomes vary across countries with different average employment hours, family and social policies, and cultural attitudes to family care provision? Using nationally representative time‐use data from the United States, Australia, Italy, France, and Denmark (N = 5,337), we compare the paid and unpaid work of childless partnered adults and parents of young children in each country. Couples were matched (except for the United States). We found parents have higher, less gender‐equal workloads than nonparents in all five countries, but overall time commitments and the difference by parenthood status were most pronounced in the United States and Australia.     

The Noncustodial Father–Child Relationship From Adolescence Into Young Adulthood

The relationship between adult children aged 18 – 24 and noncustodial fathers was explored with longitudinal data from the National Survey of Families and Households (n = 359). Noncustodial fathers’ commitment to their adolescent children (contact, involvement in childrearing decisions) was strongly associated with father‐child relations in early adulthood. Father–adult child relations were weaker when children were born to an unmarried mother and when children had no memory of living with the father. Contrary to expectations, both mothers’ and fathers’ remarriage was associated with stronger father‐child relationships in early adulthood. The results show continuity in the father‐child relationship from adolescence into young adulthood and suggest that the life course transitions of family members influence the father‐child bond.     

Family Instability,Multipartner Fertility,and Behavior in Middle Childhood

Two concepts capture the dynamic and complex nature of contemporary family structure: family instability and multipartner fertility. Although these circumstances are likely to co‐occur, their respective literatures have proceeded largely independently. The authors used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 3,062) to consider these dimensions of dynamic family structure together, asking whether they independently predict children's behavior problems at age 9. Frequent family instability was consistently predictive of higher predicted levels of behavior problems for children born to mothers who were unmarried, an association largely attenuated by factors related to family stress. Multipartner fertility was robustly related to self‐reported delinquency and teacher‐reported behavior problems among children born to mothers who were married.     

Parent‐Adolescent Communication About Sex: Retrospective Reports by Latino College Students

Latina female (n= 97) and Latino male (n= 69) college students (M age = 21.4 years) completed self‐report surveys regarding family of origin experiences, including sexual communication with parents while growing up. Latino parents of this comparatively highly educated sample tended to use direct rather than indirect strategies for communicating about sexuality with their children. Young women reported higher levels of sexual communication with mothers while growing up than did young men, and respondents reported less communication with fathers than mothers. Among young women, sexual communication with mother was positively associated with non‐Mexican origin and negatively associated with having older brothers living at home. In contrast, maternal education was positively associated with mother‐son communication about sex. Paternal education and the absence of older brothers positively predicted communication with both sons and daughters. The analyses provide novel information regarding sexual communication in Latino families and suggest directions for future research.     

Family Ties and Young Fathers' Engagement in Cape Town,South Africa

Young South African fathers are often engaged in their children's lives even if they do not live together. Using longitudinal data on children (n = 1,209) from the Cape Town area, the authors show that although only 26% of young fathers live with their children, 66% of nonresidential fathers maintain regular contact, and 61% provide financial support. The father–child relationship, however, is embedded in broader family ties. The type of father–mother relationship is strongly associated with whether fathers coreside with their children but not with fathers' contact with nonresidential children. Close mother and maternal grandmother bonds reduce the likelihood that fathers live with their children, whereas close ties between fathers and paternal grandmothers increase the chance that fathers visit nonresidential children. Family ties do not affect fathers' financial contributions, which are driven by men's current economic situation. These findings illustrate that father–child relationships are best understood in the context of interacting family systems.     

Keeping Mum: Characteristics and Family Dynamics of Mothers Who Are Liable to Pay Child Support in Australia

In recent decades, changes in post‐separation parenting arrangements in Australia have led to an increase in the small but significant group of mothers liable to pay child support to fathers. The present study uses data from the Child Support Reform Study, a national random sample of separated parents in Australia registered with the Child Support Agency (CSA) in 2008. In total, 185 mothers with a child support liability were identified. Drawing on reports from separated mothers and fathers liable to pay child support in 2008, the study found that 43% of liable mothers had shared or more time. Few liable mothers reported spending no time with their child in the previous 12 months. Unlike liable fathers, mothers with a child support liability tended to be more ‘fearful’ of their former partner; have a resident child in their household; work fewer hours in paid employment; and have older children. Liable mothers were also more likely than other separated mothers to describe the relationship with their former partner as ‘fearful.’ Gendered expectations of parenting mean that liable mothers and liable fathers may adopt different behavioural responses to their roles. The implications of these findings for family therapists are briefly discussed.     

Visitation Orders,Family Courts,and Fragile Families

Despite proposals to make parenting time a part of all new child support orders, limited research has examined why some unmarried are more likely than others to establish legal visitation agreements. This mixed‐methods study draws on qualitative data collected from unmarried mothers and fathers living in New York (N = 70) to develop hypotheses about the contexts in which parents set up visitation orders, which are then tested in a large sample of unmarried parents living apart (N = 1,392). Both qualitative and quantitative findings show that disengagement, cooperation, and conflict in the coparenting relationship postseparation influence unmarried parents' decisions about whether to establish a legal visitation agreement. The qualitative data further illustrate how parents' distrust of the court system, preference for informal agreements, and uncertainty about the custody of nonmarital children inform their decisions. The article concludes by considering approaches for helping low‐conflict coparents set up visitation agreements outside of family court.