Managing work and family in home-based employment

Two 10-item scales, one describing the management of the home-based work and the other, the management of the family work, were administered to a sample of household managers who are also the home-based worker. Scale items are designed to assess dimensions of input, planning, implementing, and output.T-tests are used to compare the means of the individual items and the scale means. Confirmatory factor analysis is used to assess whether the factoring of the scale items support the theoretical framework. Scores are higher for the management of the home-based work than for the management of family work. Although both scales are highly reliable, the items in the home-based work scale factor clearly into the dimensions of standard setting and controlling. One interpretation may be that, given a choice, the dual-manager may choose to consciously organize the paid work instead of the family work.This paper reports results from the Cooperative Regional Research Project, NE-167, entitled, At-Home Income Generation: Impact on Management, Productivity and Stability in Rural/Urban Families, partially supported by the Cooperative States Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Experiment Stations at the University of Hawaii, Iowa State University, Lincoln University (Missouri), Michigan State University, Cornell University (New York), The Ohio State University, The Pennsylvania State University, Utah State University, and the University of Vermont. Appreciation is expressed to Frank Chiang at Cornell University and Young Rae Oum at Iowa State University for the computer assistance needed to complete this research article. Patsy Sellen was instrumental in formatting and stylizing this paper to required guidelines.Her current research interests include household asset and debt formation, working families and employers' benefits, and home-based employment. She received her Ph.D. from Purdue University in 1978.Her current research work includes an analysis of family resource management in Mexico and housing conditions in rural areas. She is also involved in the study of households who work at-home for pay and their associated management practices and coping strategies. She received her Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University in 1970.Her current research work includes such topics as divorce settlements, at-home income generation and management practices of households who are engaged in home-based employment. Her Ph.D. was received from Cornell University in 1978.     

Determinants of employment of recently arrived Mexican immigrant wives

The work force participation of married, Mexican-origin immigrant women who came to the US in the 1980s was investigated. Determinants of employment utilized in this study are the women's human capital stock, household resources, and labor market structural factors. Nine hypotheses were derived from the analytical model and were examined through logistic regression. Findings showed that all human capital resource and structural labor market factors were significantly related to employment. On the other hand, four of the five family household factors namely: the age and presence of children in the household, husband's income, husband's employment, and non-labor income were significantly related to employment. Furthermore, the positive factors indicating the likelihood of being employed in 1989 for Mexican immigrant wives are: 1) being 25-54 years of age; 2) higher educational levels; 3) speaking fluent English; 4) lower levels of husband's income and non-labor income; 5) employment of husband in 1989; 6) absence of children under age 6 at home; 7) lower non-Hispanic female unemployment rates; 8) higher work force proportion employed in immigrant female-dependent occupations; 9) lower proportions of the Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) population being of Mexican origin; and 10) smaller MSA populations.     

The impact of the family on home-based work

This article reports on a study of 899 families with at least one member engaged in home-based work. Six work characteristics are examined in relation to family structure and gender of the home-based worker: business ownership, occupation of the home-based work, amount of income generated, location of the work space, number of hours worked, and availability of help with the work. Women in single-parent and full-nest families are found to do the most restructuring of work time and space and women home-based workers generate less income from the work than do men. Male home-based workers experience less conflict between family and work scheduling, are more likely to have an exclusive work space, and tend to have help with the home-based work.This article reports results from the Cooperative Regional Research Project, NE-167, entitled, At-Home Income Generation: Impact on Management, Productivity and Stability in Rural and Urban Families, partially supported by Cooperative States Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Experiment Stations at the University of Hawaii, Iowa State University, Lincoln University (Missouri), Michigan State University, Cornell University (New York), The Ohio State University, The Pennsylvania State University, Utah State University and University of Vermont.Her research interests include divorce, work and family, and the economic well-being of women and children. She received her Ph.D. from Oregon State University.He has extensive experience in research, consulting, and training for small business owners and operators, including single parents, disabled veterans, Hispanics, rural and home-based. He received his Ph.D. from New York University.     

The quality of work during the employment crisis: the Italian case

The paper aims to study empirically the relationship between the effects of the employment crisis and the quality of work in Italy using a multidimensional approach. The quality of work is identified and measured through five dimensions. Such dimensions have been regressed, both for linear and quantile regression, for the ‘employment crisis’ variable, controlling for a set of variables including worker's characteristics, firm's variables, and job characteristics. The main findings show an uneven impact of the employment crisis on the quality of work dimensions. The employment crisis seems in fact to have significantly changed quality of work just in some of the dimensions. Moreover, the changes do not apply homogeneously in respect to both the sector of activity and the distribution of the examined dimensions.     

Crisis and quality of work in the Nordic employment regime

The Nordic countries have been renowned for labour markets with high-quality jobs. The key question for the article is whether this also holds in the current financial and Eurozone crisis. Focus is on the initial years of the crisis, and indicators from the European Working Conditions Survey are used to trace changes in job quality. Physical job demands are on a lower level in the Nordic region compared to the European level. Instead, time pressure and working to tight deadlines are more common. In general, the downturn in the economy seems to have decreased the intensity in the work situation of employees. Temporary employment and job insecurity are more present in Finland and Sweden than in Denmark and Norway. Still, the Nordic employment regime is characterized by a large proportion of jobs where employees have influence and autonomy, and are rather satisfied with their job. One possible explanation for these encouraging results is the high level of unionization that has persisted through the crisis.     

Regulation and the future of work: The employment relationship as an innovation facilitator

Digital transformation and the reorganization of the firm have given rise to new forms of work that diverge significantly from the standard employment relationship. Advocates of digital disruption suggest that the existing legal framework cannot accommodate “innovative” working templates and business models. This article, however, argues that labour regulation can continue to facilitate innovation, presenting the employment relationship as a flexible instrument, and standard forms of employment as the means of achieving efficiencies and cost advantages. First, they allow for the full exercise of managerial prerogative and attendant internal flexibility in workforce deployment, and, second, they constitute an effective device to deliver training and develop skills.     

The work–family challenge and mental health

The work–family literature is dominated by studies of white middle-class workers. In this study, we sought to expand this focus by examining work–family issues from the perspective of Mexicans who have immigrated to the USA within the past five years. Using data from qualitative in-depth interviews (N?=?22) and quantitative structured interviews (N?=?150), we documented the work–family experiences associated with immigration, and we examined the extent to which these experiences differed by gender as well as their mental health effects. The in-depth interviews clearly indicated that separation from family and community was a common and poignant strain experienced by Mexican immigrants who came to the USA to find work, and that these experiences did not differ between women and men. Quantitative analyses corroborated the qualitative findings by indicating women and men had similar levels of work–family strain. Analyses also indicated that higher levels of work–family strain were associated with more perceived stress, anxiety and depression, and that these associations did not differ between women and men. Finally, modest evidence suggested that the effects of work–family strain on mental health may be lower when the realities experienced by immigrants in finding employment and sending money home matched their expectations. This study adds a new voice to the work–family literature and the context and results make clear the tension between work and family: families frequently benefit from adults’ paid work, but this paid work is not without costs.     

人才策略与家族企业可持续发展

我国的私营企业大多为中小企业,且90 %以上采用了家族制管理模式,即所谓的家族企业。改革开放以来,我国家族企业在新旧体制夹缝和政策歧视中顽强生长,现已成为推动中国市场化进程的生力军,在国民经济中占有举足轻重的地位,并将为中国全面建设小康社会做出不可低估的贡献。但家族企业在为中国经济作出巨大贡献的背后有一个令人神伤的统计数字:家族企业一般寿命为24年,能持续至第二代的只占3/10,而能持续到第三代的只有1/10。家族企业能否持续发展,这无疑是适者生存的问题,是企业核心竞争力问题,归根结底是人才的问题。家族企业在发展的过程中…     

A comparison: The treatment of wives of alcoholics with the treatment of wives of pathological gamblers

This study was conducted to determine how treatment approaches would differ for two reference groups — wives of alcoholics and wives of pathological gamblers. Data from thirty-nine wives from each reference group were collected over a period of sixteen months. The results indicate that the wives of the pathological gamblers had to deal with specific issues which did not surface in the treatment of wives of the alcoholics. Some of the wives of the pathological gamblers received threatening phone calls from creditors, had to re-pay loans for which they co-signed, had to commence handling the family budget, and had to deal with their own withdrawal from his gambling. They also found trust very slow in coming, realized they would be under great financial straits for an extended period of time, and found a shortage of self-help groups and qualified professionals within a reasonable distance of their home. Finally they found loneliness a very realistic issue in early abstinence because he was spending so much of his time outside the home attending G.A. meetings, aftercare and working two, and sometimes three jobs, in order to repay his gambling debts.     

The indispensable nature of wives' work for the farm family enterprise

Cet article soutient que les contributions des épouses des exploitants agricoles sont essentielles à la survivance de l'entreprise familiale. Notre étude de cas de St-Charles, Québec, confirme l'importance qu'attachent les autres recherches aux multiples dimensions du rôle de l'épouse de l'exploitant agricole. Cependant, le rapport des biens, les méthodes de la collection des données, le cadre de la recherche et les fémmes elles-mêmes ne tiennent pas compte de ce rôle, le sous-estiment, n'y attachent aucune importance ou le cachent. Cet article met en question un tel traitement et une telle perception du role de la femme dans l'exploitation agricole et revendique l'identification des forces qui ont mystifiées notre opinion du travail en général et du travail des épouses des exploitants en particulier. Toute analyse du domaine de l'exploitation agricole qui omet ou n'attache aucune importance au travail des femmes présente un apercu trompeur des structures agricoles.
This paper argues that the contributions of farm wives are essential for the survival of the farm family enterprise. Our case study of St-Charles, Quebec, confirms the emphasis of other studies on the multi-dimensional role of the farm wife. However, property relations, methods of data collection, research frameworks and the women themselves ignore, underestimate, de-emphasize or conceal this role. This paper questions such treatment and the perception of women's role in farming and calls for the identification of forces that have mystified our view of work in general, and farm wives' work in particular. Any analysis of farming which omits or de-emphasizes wives' work presents a misleading view of agricultural structures.     

The labor supply of military wives in the US

Despite a slight increase in the labor force participation rate of women age 18–55 in the U.S. between 1990 and 2010, the labor force participation rate of military wives in this age cohort fell from 63 to 57?%. The goal of this paper is twofold: to document and analyze the labor force participation of military wives between 1990 and 2010, using the U.S. Census and American Community Survey data, and to compare the relationship between migration and labor force participation for military and non-military wives. We find that the primary suspects to explain the widening gap are the repeated migration for military wives, and the deepening of the recession.