Receipt of Formal and Informal Help with Specific Care Tasks among Older People Living in their Own Home. National Trends over Two Decades

Sweden is seen as a typical example of a social democratic welfare regime, with universal and generous welfare policies. However, in the last decades, there have been substantial reductions in the Swedish provision of care for older people. This study aimed to examine trends in sources of care‐receipt in older people (77+) living in their own home and with a perceived need for help with two specific tasks: house cleaning and/or food shopping. Trends in care‐receipt were examined in relation to gender, living alone, having children and socio‐economic position. Data from the 1992, 2002 and 2011 data collection waves of the national study, Swedish Panel Study of Living Conditions of the Oldest Old (SWEOLD), were used. Response rates varied between 86 and 95 per cent, and the sample represents the population well. Trends and differences between groups were explored in bivariate and logistic regression analyses. There was a reduction in formal care‐receipt regarding house cleaning and food shopping over the study period. It was more common for women than men to receive formal care, and more common for men than women to receive informal care. Reductions in formal care have affected older women more than older men. Still, living alone was the most influential factor in care‐receipt, associated with a greater likelihood of formal care‐receipt and a lower likelihood of informal care‐receipt. It can be concluded that public responsibility for care is becoming more narrowly defined in Sweden, and that more responsibility for care is placed on persons in need of care and their families.     

Complex home care: challenges arising from the blurring of boundaries between family and professional care

Over the last 50 years, increasingly complex care (such as tracheostomy management, dialysis or enteral feeding) has shifted from hospital to home, with a concomitant rise in patient self-management and care given by family members. Recognition of the importance of the contribution of family care to the health system is also growing. This article reports the findings of a New Zealand study which explored the experiences of family carers who manage technical health procedures at home. It then draws attention to some broader issues raised by shifting complex care from professional management in hospital settings to family care at home, namely the ways in which complex home care blurs the boundaries between professional and family care (creating the ambiguous position of the expert carer) and questions of safety and responsibility in family care. We also discuss the implications for policy around family caregiving in New Zealand. Given the potential physical and mental health impacts of caring, it is time for renewed consideration of what family carers should be expected or allowed to manage and how the health system can support them in their important role.     

家庭结构视角下新生代农民工劳动参与影响因素

农村劳动力供给特别是新生代农民工的劳动参与率是影响经济和社会发展的关键变量。运用Probit和IV Probit模型考察家庭结构对新生代农民工劳动参与率的影响及其机制发现:多代同堂的家庭结构对新生代农民工的劳动参与存在负效应。从性别看,女性新生代农民工劳动参与受家庭结构影响的程度大于男性。因此,重视新生代农民工家庭特征差异,配套采取多种措施促进新生代农民工参与市场劳动,是解决"民工荒"与"就业难"的着力点。     

Sexual and Family Violence: Overcoming Barriers to Service Access for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Clients

ABSTRACT

Despite the fact that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities typically experience a high prevalence of sexual and family violence, service responses have mostly been culturally inappropriate and ineffective. This article reports on a collaborative, participatory research project aimed at exploring barriers to service access by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients when they have been affected by sexual and family violence. The findings reveal multiple barriers to service access, including justice system deterrents, social taboo, shame, and a lack of culturally appropriate services. The article highlights the importance of recognising and addressing the complex interplay of historic, social, and cultural factors influencing service access.     

Social network and family business: Uncovering hybrid family firms

What does it mean for a private enterprise in China to be embedded in a family? Our purpose here is twofold: (1) use social network analysis to describe what it means for a firm to be embedded in a family, (2) reveal from the application a new kind of firm, not family, yet akin to family. Armed with data on a large probability sample of private enterprises — a third of which meet ownership and employment criteria of being family businesses — we uncover a category of “hybrid family firms” that look modern in the style of firms that exclude family, but operate socially in ways similar to family firms. Our conclusion from summary statistics on the sample is that there are no differences in average performance level or network advantage for the three categories of businesses: family firms, hybrid family firms, and family-excluded firms. The fact that CEOs of family firms and hybrid family firms more often turn to family as key business contacts is a fact about network composition that raises no question about network mechanisms. Whether the CEO turns to more or fewer family contacts, government help is more likely with stronger political connections, and business success and survival are more likely with a large, open network. That said, the look-modern, act-traditional hybrid family firms stand alone in prospering with a CEO embedded in a closed business network. Recognition of hybrid family firms adds to the literature’s illustrations of social network analysis used to distinguish types of businesses and business people, and extends the population of organizations within which governance and strategy are likely to be better understood when viewed through a family logic.     

禽流感风险、多元化经营与中国养禽户家庭生计研究

现有研究普遍认为禽流感的发生会对养禽户家庭生计造成严重负向冲击,而统计数据显示禽流感发生之后养禽户家禽收入显著下降,但家庭收入仍呈上升趋势。 基于农村固定观察点 2 520 个养禽户 2004—2012 年家禽养殖跟踪数据,本文采用固定效应模型,分析禽流感冲击下养禽户家庭生计变化,探讨禽流感、多元化经营与中国养禽农户家庭生计之间的关系。 结果表明,禽流感的爆发确实对家禽养殖农户生计造成了巨大的冲击,但多元化经营可以削弱禽流感对养禽户家庭经营收入的负向影响,且相比于种植业,养禽户更倾向于通过增加畜牧业投入和非农就业投入来避免禽流感造成的家庭经营收入波动。 我国现有禽流感补偿政策仅按照扑杀数量发放,为制定更为精准的扑杀补偿标准和灾后扶持政策,应关注禽流感对养禽户生计冲击的农户异质性,充分考虑养禽户多元化经营状况,扩大政策关注范围,正确引导农户进行兼业经营。     

Intergenerational relationships in Chinese transnational families: A typology study

ABSTRACT

Using latent class analysis, this study examined the overall patterns of multifaceted intergenerational relationships of 604 parent-child dyads in 292 transnational families in Beijing, China. Three family relation types emerged: local obligatory (27%, with reciprocal support and ambivalent feelings), distant discordant (27%, with weak associations and high conflict), and distant intimate (46%, with highest filial ratings and emotional quality). Parents’ health and children’s marital status, socioeconomic status, childcare responsibilities, and sibling numbers were associated with different relation types. The findings are helpful for social workers to identify subgroups of older adults in transnational families who are at risk of having inadequate support.     

The role of parenthood in shaping the gender wage gap – A comparative analysis of 26 European countries

We use cross-national data on 26 EU countries to estimate how parenthood contributes to the gender wage gap, and assess how institutional elements affect this relationship. We find that irrespective of cultural norms and policies, fathers receive a wage premium, which increases the gender gap. Motherhood gaps vary across countries. The highest gaps are seen in Eastern European countries, where policies and norms lead to long absences from work. Moderate to small penalties are found in Continental Europe, Anglo-Saxon and Nordic countries, alongside higher maternal employment. No motherhood penalties are found for Southern EU countries, where mothers return to work quickly or exit the labor market indefinitely.     

Performative family: homosexuality,marriage and intergenerational dynamics in China

Using in‐depth interview data on nominal marriages – legal marriages between a gay man and a lesbian to give the appearance of heterosexuality – this paper develops the concept of performative family to explain the processes through which parents and their adult children negotiate and resolve disagreements in relation to marriage decisions in post‐socialist China. We identify three mechanisms – network pressure, a revised discourse of filial piety and resource leverage – through which parents influence their gay offspring's decision to turn to nominal marriage. We also delineate six strategies, namely minimizing network participation, changing expectations, making partial concessions, drawing the line, delaying decisions and ending the marriage, by which gay people in nominal marriages attempt to meet parental expectations while simultaneously retaining a degree of autonomy. Through these interactions, we argue that Chinese parents and their gay adult children implicitly and explicitly collaborate to perform family, emphasizing the importance of formally meeting society's expectations about marriage rather than substantively yielding to its demands. We also argue that the performative family is a pragmatic response to the tension between the persistent centrality of family and marriage and the rising tide of individualism in post‐socialist China. We believe that our findings highlight the specific predicament of homosexual people. They also shed light on the more general dynamics of intergenerational negotiation because there is evidence that the mechanisms used by parents to exert influence may well be similar between gay and non‐gay people.     

Can the welfare state replace parents? Children's cognition in the United States and Great Britain

We compare family and parental effects on child verbal facility, verbal achievement and mathematics achievement in the United States and Great Britain. We study 3,438 5–13 year-old children from the 1994 NLSY Child-Mother Data Set and 1429 same-aged children from the National Child Development Study, also known as the British Child. Multivariate analyses suggest that the processes through which families invest in child cognition are similar across societies, with factors including low birth weight, child health, maternal cognition, family size and children's home environments being consequential. We conclude that parental investments are equally important across the two societies. The more developed welfare state in Great Britain does not notably compensate for parental investments in that society, although it may play a greater role when parental resources are absent or stretched thin.