The Mental Health Advantage of Immigrant‐Background Youth: The Role of Family Factors

Children of immigrant background, despite problems with acculturation, poverty, and discrimination, have better mental health than children of native parents. We asked whether this is a result of immigrant families' characteristics such as family structure and relations. Using a new comparative study on the integration of immigrant‐background youth conducted in England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden (N = 18,716), particularly strong associations with mental health (internalizing and externalizing problems) were found for family structure, family cohesion, and parental warmth. Overall, half of the advantage in internalizing and externalizing problems among immigrant‐background youth could be accounted for by our measures of family structure and family relations, with family cohesion being particularly important.     

A Typology of Dual Earner Marriages Based on Work and Family Arrangements

Qualitative research has investigated distinct couple types that divide work and family responsibilities based on employment circumstances and relationship characteristics, but such research is not conducive to identifying frequencies of couple types or statistically comparing work-family circumstances across couple types. The current study incorporated both employment and family variables in identifying four distinct dual-earner couple types among respondents from the National Survey of the Changing Workforce. Couple types were compared regarding demographic information, and memberships in couple types were predicted based on this information. Some significant differences emerged that may begin to explain the circumstances and motivations behind selecting certain work-family arrangements, though the more peer-like couples were less distinct and in some ways less economically advantaged than expected.

Family support in late life: A review of the literature on aging,disability, and family caregiving

ABSTRACT

For older adults and people with disabilities in the United States, family caregiving is an important part of remaining at home and in the community. As care recipients and caregivers age, family dynamics change, and the health, social, and financial impacts of this (largely unremunerated) work have implications for individuals, families, and social policy. In this review, the authors map the literature across multiple fields related to disability and aging to understand caregiving in late life, what it means to be an older caregiver and/or to care for older people. The authors summarize the findings of 97 articles to address the care, services, and supports family caregivers provide for older adults; negative and positive impacts for caregivers serving in this role; supports that family members use or need; and societal impact of family caregiving. Much of the literature describes the work family caregivers provide and negative impacts of caregiving. Less attention is devoted to caregiving benefits, supports used by family caregivers, and societal impacts. The authors conclude with an agenda for future research that attends to the need for research that includes: more diverse samples, new types of caregivers, longitudinal data, qualitative data and analysis, and comparative research.     

Work and Family Role Strain Among University Employees

This paper analyzes the determinants of work and family role strain among university employees with data from a survey of faculty and staff of a public university in the Western U.S. The results indicate that difficulties caring for children and elderly dependents are the primary causes of work and family role strain in the family domain, while dissatisfaction with resources and perceived unfair criticism are primary in the work domain. The predictors of work and family role strain are similar for faculty and staff, and for men and women, with one exception: Having a supportive spouse or partner reduces work and family role strain much more for women than it does for men. Implications for university personnel policy are discussed.     

Work/Family Policy Stratification: The Examples of Family Support and Family Leave

In the past decade the United States Congress has debated and passed legislative policies concerned with women's work, both in the family and in the labor force. The Family Support Act of 1988 and the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 fall into this category of legislative policy. A comparative study of Congressional testimony in each case reveals that these two pieces of legislation are excellent examples of how federal policies—and the debates which fashion these policies—maintain and promote a system of policy stratification that perpetuates differences based on gender, race, class and marital and occupational status.     

Implications of Overwork and Overload for the Quality of Men's Family Relationships

This study examined the implications of men's long work hours and role overload for the quality of their relationships with their wives and their firstborn (M= 15 years) and secondborn adolescent offspring (M= 12.5 years) in a sample of 190 dual‐earner families. Holding constant men's occupational self‐direction and level of education, long hours were related to less time spent with the wife but were unrelated to spouses' love, perspective‐taking, or conflict; high levels of role overload consistently predicted less positive marital relationships. In contrast, the combination of long hours and high overload was consistently associated with less positive father‐adolescent relationships, a pattern that was similar for older and younger adolescents and for sons and daughters.     

Work,Family, and Mental Health: Testing Different Models of Work‐Family Fit

Using family resilience theory, this study examined the effects of work‐family conflict and work‐family facilitation on mental health among working adults to gain a better understanding of work‐family fit. Data from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS) were used to compare different combinations of work‐family conflict and work‐family facilitation. Results suggest that family to work facilitation is a family protective factor that offsets and buffers the deleterious effects of work‐family conflict on mental health. The results across these outcomes suggest that work‐family conflict and facilitation must be considered separately, and that adult mental health is optimized when family to work facilitation is high and family to work and work to family conflict is low.     

The Role of Pre‐ and Postconception Relationships for First‐Time Parents

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, a nationally representative cohort of young adults, the authors analyzed relationship type at the time of a first birth (N = 4,044). More than 10% of births were to a postconception cohabiting household (cohabitations that were initiated between conception and birth), a higher proportion of births than those born to postconception married households. Individuals in postconception and preconception cohabiting relationships (cohabitations that existed prior to conception) were demographically similar; both groups were associated with lower levels of socioeconomic advantage relative to those in preconception and postconception marriage. Postconception and preconception cohabiting relationships were associated with similar levels of dissolution, as 40% dissolved within 3 years of a child's birth. Having a marital union, rather than whether relationship was established pre‐ or postconception, was more strongly associated with who selected into the relationship and how long the relationship lasted.     

Racial Discrimination as a Moderator of the Links Among Stress,Maternal Psychological Functioning,and Family Relationships

This study focuses on the links between social contexts and normative family patterns to identify factors at the societal, community, family, and individual levels that enhance African Americans' ability to overcome stressful life events and foster positive family relationships. The Mundane Extreme Environmental Stress Model was used to explore these links. From urban and rural areas in Iowa and Georgia, 383 families with 10‐ or 11‐year‐old children were recruited. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses. Maternal psychological distress was linked with parent‐child relationship quality both directly and indirectly through its association with intimate partnership quality. When racial discrimination was greater, stronger links emerged between stressor pileup and psychological distress, as well as between psychological distress and the quality of both intimate partnerships and parent‐child relationships. Future research on African American family processes should include the effects of racial discrimination.     

Family Intervention and Services for Persons with Mental Illness in the People's Republic of China

ABSTRACT

Family services and intervention for persons with mental illness is crucial in mental health services. In this paper, the writer attempts to describe family intervention and services for persons with mental illness in the People's Republic of China. Family intervention and services like home-based care, guardianship network, family counseling, and psychoeducational programs are only preliminarily developed. Their effectiveness and challenges in future development are discussed.     

Drawing Family Boundaries: Children's Perspectives on Family Relationships in Rural and Urban Ethiopia

This article explores how children conceptualise and practice family relationships in two social settings in Ethiopia. Based on ethnographic data, it discusses (i) how urban and rural children construct family; (ii) what family activities children do and which social positions they assume; and (iii) the convergence and divergence of meanings and practices of family relationships between urban and rural Ethiopia. The analysis demonstrates how ‘normative family’ and actual ‘family practices’ are shaped by socio‐cultural, material and spatial contexts. Insights drawn also reveal the complex ways in which access to material resources, geographical distance, rural‐urban locations and cultural traits such as patterns of marriage and child relocation practices shape family relationships.     

Role Conflict among Family Childcare Providers in the Bronx

Family childcare (FCC) providers provide childcare for many low‐income families in the United States, and the literature suggests they take on several other support roles as well. The current study consisted of focus groups and interviews in which FCC providers (N = 22) shared successes and challenges in their profession. Using grounded theory we identified four primary FCC roles: teacher, caregiver, social worker and business owner. Conflict within and between roles was related to considerable stress. Because roles varied across a spectrum from entangled to rigid professional relationship boundaries, many FCC providers struggled with the limits of their daily work. Suggestions are made to limit role conflict, re‐establish boundaries and promote FCC providers’ well‐being.     

The Attitudes of Social Work Students and Practicing Psychiatric Social Workers Toward the Inclusion in the Community of People with Mental Illness

Abstract

This study measured and compared the attitudes of social work students and practicing psychiatric social workers to the inclusion in the community of people with mental illness. The Community Living Attitude Scale Mental Illness (comprising the four subscales of Empowerment, Exclusion, Sheltering, and Similarity) was administered to a random sample of 68 Israeli BA social work students (first year: n = 35; third year: n = 33) and 28 practicing psychiatric social workers. Overall, the participants endorsed Empowerment and perceived the Similarity of persons with mental illness to themselves more than they agreed with the Exclusion attitude of segregating those persons from community life. First-year students rated Empowerment and Similarity significantly lower than did the third-year students and rated Sheltering significantly higher than did psychiatric social workers. Psychiatric social workers did not differ from third-year students and did not have stronger attitudinal commitment to the inclusion paradigm. They differed from first-year students only in the sheltering attitude; they showed lower support for sheltering people with mental illness.     

From Face-to-Face to Facebook: The Role of Technology and Social Media in Adoptive Family Relationships with Birth Family Members

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study of 77 individuals in 40 couples (same-sex and heterosexual), who had adopted publically, privately, or internationally, examined parents' engagement with their child's birth family via technology (e.g., texting, e-mail, social media) through the lens of the Couple and Family Technology frame-work (Hertlein & Blumer, 2014 Hertlein, K. M., & Blumer, M. L. C. (2014). The couple and family technology framework. New York, NY: Routledge. [Google Scholar]). Parents used three approaches to contact: active, passive, and no contact. Regardless of approach, some parents described concerns about boundaries. Couples were generally in agreement in their perspectives on engaging with birth family via technology. Practitioners must be know-ledgeable about management of relationships via technology and help adoptive families set healthy boundaries.     

Predictors of Burden of Family Caregivers of Women with Substance Use Disorders or Co-Occurring Substance and Mental Disorders

ABSTRACT

This study examined the impact of having a female family member with a substance use or co-occurring disorders on family caregivers. Predictors of subjective burden (worry, stigma, and displeasure) and objective burden (family disruption) on caregivers and on types of burden were explored. Subjects were 82 women receiving substance abuse treatment and their family member providing most social support. Behavioral problems of the recipient and lack of social support for caregivers predicted higher levels of family member burden, with different types of social support predicting different types of burden. Having a dual disorder did not predict family member burden. Implications of findings for treatment are discussed.     

Satisfaction With Work and Family Life: No Evidence of a Cultural Reversal

Hochschild (1997) argued that in recent decades the rewards of work have increased relative to those of family life and that this cultural reversal has aggravated the time bind that families face by increasing working hours. To the contrary, pooled data from the 1973–1994 General Social Surveys indicate that in working families, women have shifted away from finding work more satisfying than home toward finding home a haven. Moreover, were it not for women's growing labor force participation and the changing distribution of marital status, the shift would have been even larger. Men's relative work–home satisfaction has been stable. Finally, finding work a haven is unrelated to weekly working hours, and it has not contributed to any increases in working hours over time.     

Enhancing Family Therapy's Relationships With Research

The contention of this article is that systemic family therapy has much to gain from a realistic appraisal of its research base, which is as positive as possible. And that through such an appraisal we can find ways of developing the scope of family therapy to the benefit of the profession and thereby, of our clients. Family therapy will benefit if practitioners can present an informed view of research. As a preliminary approach to this objective, I review reasons why perceptions of family therapy underestimate its research base, and why therapists might resist involvement with research. The article then explores the reasons for regarding randomised controlled trials as a ‘gold standard’, and why they are not well fitted for the purpose of evaluating or developing a relational therapy. Next is a consideration of alternative approaches to research, including a consideration of what clients actually want from their therapy, then a brief review of the positive findings of outcome research. Greater emphasis on researching processes in therapy is proposed, and consideration of the ‘common factors’ debate is shown to support priorities that are specific to systemic therapies. The article concludes with suggestions for increasing the involvement of family therapists with research, both as consumers and as research practitioners.     

Cardiometabolic risks associated with work-to-family conflict: findings from the Work Family Health Network

ABSTRACT

Objective: Work and family stressors may be associated with elevated cardiovascular risk factors.

Methods: To assess the effects of work-to-family conflict (WTFC) on biomarkers of cardiometabolic risk, we examined 1524 extended care employees over 18 months and estimated multilevel linear models that accounted for the nested nature of the data.

Results: WTFC was positively associated with BMI [β?=?0.53, CI?=?(0.08, 0.98), p?=?.02 at baseline and β?=?0.59, CI?=?(0.12, 1.04), p?=?.01 across the 18-month study period] and negatively with HDL cholesterol [β?=??0.32, CI?=?(?0.57, ?0.08), p?=?.01 across the 18-month study period]. The rate of change in BMI from baseline to 18 months increased with higher levels of WTFC as well (β?=?0.08, CI?=?(0.03, 0.15), p?=?.0007). However, WTFC was not associated with other variables reflecting cardiometabolic risk, such as including blood pressure, cholesterol, glycosylated hemoglobin and cigarette smoking status.

Conclusion: Findings suggest that BMI, which is linked to potentially malleable health behaviors, is more closely related to inter-role conflict than biological markers reflecting longer-term physiologic processes. These effects are exacerbated over time and may be particularly detrimental to already overweight and obese individuals.     

The Contradictory Effects of Work and Family on Political Activism

This paper examines the contradictory effects of occupations and families on political activism. Based on a comparative study of left-wing and right-wing activists from the 1960s, I find that although people maintain their beliefs and values across the life cycle, occupations and family life become competing interests in sustained political involvement. At the same time, careers can serve as an extension of political beliefs; families also act both to nurture and confirm political beliefs as well as pull people away from the world of politics.     

The Role of Stress,Family Coping,Ethnic Identity,and Mother-Daughter Relationships on Substance Use Among Gang-Affiliated Hispanic Females

ABSTRACT

Hispanic adolescent females are the largest group of minority adolescents in the nation and appear to be at great risk for substance use. This research is based on data generated from a cross-sectional study of 150 Mexican American gang-affiliated adolescent females to predict substance-use recurrence. Findings reveal that positive family relationships, and in particular, mother-daughter relationships are protective factors for alcohol- and tobacco-use recurrence. Furthermore, the ability of the immediate family to cope with difficulties, stress, and conflicts were significant in averting illicit drug recurrence. This research provides evidence of the role of the family as a protective factor among these adolescents, despite their gang affiliation and street orientation. Discussed is how these findings contribute to formulating effective intervention, prevention, and treatment responses aimed at this “beyond risk” population.