Social Support,Unfulfilled Expectations,and Affective Well‐being on Return to Employment

We conducted a longitudinal study to investigate how social support from the partner is related to mothers' affective well‐being during their return to employment after maternity leave and whether expectations of that support have an additional impact. We differentiated four forms of support and their respective expectation discrepancies: emotional, instrumental, informational, and companionship. Further, we included the impact of meeting specific support expectations. A convenience sample of 288 women filled out questionnaires 2 weeks before reentry and then 1 month and 2 months afterward. Social support was associated with well‐being, with emotional support having the strongest positive impact. Informational and instrumental support either were not related or were negatively related to affective well‐being. Expectations had an additional influence but were inconsistently associated with affect. They became more important over time.     

‘Mixed’ Japanese-Filipino identities under Japanese multiculturalism

ABSTRACT

The ways in which multiculturalism is debated and practiced forms an important frame for ‘mixed’ ethnic identities to take shape. In this paper, I explore how young migrants of Japanese-Filipino ‘mixed’ parentage make sense of their ethnic identities in Japan. My key findings are that dominant discourses constructing the Japanese nation as a monoracial, monolingual and monoethnic nation leave no space for diversity within the definition of ‘Japanese’, creating the necessity for alternative labels like haafu or ‘mixed roots’. Japanese multiculturalism does not provide alternative narratives of Japaneseness but preserves the myth of Japanese racial homogeneity by recognizing diversity while maintaining ethnic and racial boundaries. Lastly, these categories have not been actively questioned by my respondents. Rather, they show flexibility in adopting these various labels – haafu, ‘mixed roots’, Filipino, Firipin-jin – in different contexts.