Familial Reciprocity and Subjective Well‐being in Ghana

The authors investigated variations in reciprocity and the impact of reciprocity on well‐being in a West African society. They hypothesized that household size and income diversity encourage reciprocity, which in turn enhances subjective well‐being. In empirical testing of these hypotheses the authors used the data of the Core Welfare Indicators Questionnaire of Ghana, a national sample of household heads (N males = 33,949, N females = 13,900) collected in 2003. A regression analysis showed that remittance facilitates balanced or credited reciprocity, whereas size‐related measures (marital status and generational relationships) produce mixed results. Reciprocity clearly strengthens perceived economic security and level of happiness among Ghanaians. This research suggests that extensive reciprocity among kin, rather than household configurations, should be stressed in efforts to understand the structure of familial relationships and its consequences for well‐being.     

Feeling Caught Between Parents: Adult Children's Relations With Parents and Subjective Well‐Being

Research on divorce has found that adolescents’ feelings of being caught between parents are linked to internalizing problems and weak parent‐child relationships. The present study estimates the effects of marital discord, as well as divorce, on young adult offspring's feelings of being caught in the middle (N =632). Children with parents in high‐conflict marriages were more likely than other children to feel caught between parents. These feelings were associated with lower subjective well‐being and poorer quality parent‐child relationships. Offspring with divorced parents were no more likely than offspring with continuously married parents in low‐conflict relationships to report feeling caught. Feelings of being caught appeared to fade in the decade following parental divorce. These results suggest that, unlike children of divorce, children with parents in conflicted marriages (who do not divorce) may be unable to escape from their parents’ marital problems—even into adulthood.     

Autonomy,Fairness and Active Relationships: Children's Experiences of Well‐being in Childcare

Researchers and policy‐makers are increasingly concerned with children's well‐being in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) and Outside School Hours Care (OSHC) settings. Recent research identifies the value of using qualitative methods to understand children's experiences of well‐being in ECEC/OSHC, but there remain few such studies. This article presents findings from a child‐centric qualitative study with Australian children of nurses and police, which sought to understand their experiences of well‐being in ECEC/OSHC. Children's experiences of well‐being were shaped by parental relationships, how informed they were about the rationale for their care arrangements and the degree of age‐appropriate autonomy they experienced.     

Within‐ and Between‐Family Associations of Marital Functioning and Child Well‐being

This study clarifies within‐family and between‐family links between marital functioning and child well‐being. Expanding on existing prospective research, this study tests whether changes in parents' marital functioning are associated with corresponding changes in their children's well‐being, independent from associations that exist when comparing different families. Participants (N = 1,033) were members of married, opposite‐sex couples with children who participated in five waves of a larger study of marriage in the U.S. Army. Spouses' constructive communication, verbal conflict, and marital satisfaction each showed between‐family associations with parent‐reported child internalizing and externalizing problems. In contrast, within‐family associations were significant only for parents' communication behaviors. That is, parents who reported lower levels of marital satisfaction also reported lower child well‐being, whereas change in parents' communication was associated with change in child well‐being over time. Isolating within‐family effects is important for understanding marital and child functioning and for identifying potential targets for effective intervention.     

Postdivorce Parent–Child Contact and Child Well‐being: The Importance of Predivorce Parental Involvement

Frequent parent–child contact after divorce is generally assumed to be in children's best interests, but findings are mixed. This study extends the small body of research about the conditions under which parent–child contact is more beneficial or less beneficial by examining the role of predivorce parental involvement. It is argued that the more a parent was involved in child rearing in the past, the more important postdivorce parent–child contact is for child well‐being. Data from the Netherlands (N = 3,694) show that when children live with the parent who was not the primary caretaker, child well‐being is lower. Similarly, the more the father used to be involved in child rearing, the more beneficial nonresident father–child contact is for children. These findings suggest that it is not so much the frequency of contact per se that matters for child well‐being but, rather, the extent to which postdivorce residence arrangements reflect predivorce parenting arrangements.     

Psychosocial Well‐Being and the Relationship Between Divorce and Children's Academic Achievement

As an unprecedented number of children live in families experiencing divorce, researchers have developed increasingly complex explanations for the consequences associated with marital dissolution. Current accounts focus on changes to family finances, destabilized parenting practices, elevated parental conflict, and deterioration of the parent–child relationship, to explain the impact of divorce. A less studied explanation draws attention to children's diminished psychosocial well‐being following divorce. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Kindergarten cohort (ECLS‐K) (N = 10,061), I examined the role of psychosocial well‐being in the relationship between divorce and children's outcomes. The results suggest that divorce is associated with diminished psychosocial well‐being in children, and that this decrease helps explain the connection between divorce and lower academic achievement.     

Fathering With Multiple Partners: Links to Children's Well‐Being in Early Childhood

The claim that multiple partner fertility may pose a risk of adverse outcomes for children has not been tested. We test this argument using a sample of 4,027 resident fathers and children from the Fragile Families and Child Well‐being Survey by examining the pathways through which fathers' multipartnered fertility is associated with children's externalizing behaviors and physical health status at 36 months. Path analyses indicate that multiple partner fertility exerted both a significant direct and indirect effect through paternal depression to influence children's externalizing behaviors. Fathers' multiple partner fertility also exerted a significant indirect effect through one mediator—father involvement—to influence children's physical health. This evidence suggests that the disruptions brought about by multipartnered fertility are important for understanding child well‐being.     

Graduating Out of Poverty Across Generations: Unpacking Children’s Well‐being Trajectories in Burundi

Graduation model interventions represent a new wave of anti‐poverty programming that seeks to offer a sustainable pathway out of poverty. An expanding evidence base points towards positive economic outcomes at household level but little is known about impacts on child well‐being. This paper investigates children’s well‐being in Burundi during and after participation in a graduation model programme using a longitudinal mixed‐methods approach. The programme is found to improve child well‐being, particularly in relation to housing, food security and education. Covariate shocks undermine sustainability of effects but greater knowledge, experience and prioritisation of children’s needs contribute to harnessing improved outcomes.     

The Impact of Complex Family Structure on Child Well‐being: Evidence From Siblings

Evidence from the United Kingdom Millennium Cohort on children at ages 3 and 5 with older siblings addresses the questions of whether those living with both biological parents and only full siblings have better emotional and behavior outcomes than other children, and whether nonfull siblings affect children's outcomes independently of parents' partnership status. Adjusting for measured family circumstances and resources in cross‐sectional regressions accounted for much of the adverse association of family complexity with child outcomes. Controlling for unobserved family and child fixed effects did not, however, attenuate all estimates further. Fixed unobservable factors appeared to be masking underlying associations. Allowing for them intensified some, albeit modest, estimates. These revealed excess externalizing behavior problems for boys with single or stepparents but only full siblings. For girls with single mothers, the chances of internalizing problems were raised. Whether siblings were full or not made little difference to outcomes in general.     

Dimensions of Job Quality,Mechanisms, and Subjective Well‐Being in the United States

How does job quality predict subjective well‐being in the United States? Prior research suggests that various job quality dimensions such as job security and individual task discretion affect subjective well‐being, but the theoretical mechanisms are implied rather than tested and aspects of job quality are rarely tested together. I use structural equation modeling and General Social Survey data to assess the impact of five job quality dimensions—individual task discretion, monetary compensation, job security, low work intensity, and safe work conditions—on subjective well‐being. Then, I show that job quality influences subjective well‐being by improving social life, altering class identification, affecting physical health, and increasing amounts of leisure time. Finally, while I find that job quality dimensions do have statistically significant effects on subjective well‐being, the way in which job quality affects subjective well‐being differs by job dimension. In other words, job quality has a statistically significant impact on subjective well‐being, but different job quality domains are connected to subjective well‐being in different ways.     

Trust and Subjective Well‐being after the Great East Japan Earthquake,Tsunami and Nuclear Meltdown: Preliminary Results

This paper presents preliminary results of an analysis of trust in governmental institutions and social networks after the disaster of 11 March 2011, as well as an investigation of the implication of such trust resources for subjective well‐being. Using data from a postal survey carried out in the Tōhoku and Kanto region in September 2011, differences in trust resources are explored by regional proximity to the disaster area as well as by personal affliction. Levels of social trust prove to be generally high, whilst trust in governmental institutions is low, especially when personally affected by the disaster. Trust resources are shown to contribute positively to subjective well‐being and thus to constitute an important asset in the process of coping with disaster.     

Maternal Cohabitation and Child Well‐Being Among Kindergarten Children

Using data collected from 10,511 kindergarten children and their parents from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Kindergarten Cohort, this study examines child well‐being across cohabiting 2‐biological‐parent families; cohabiting stepfamilies; married stepfamilies; and married 2‐biological‐parent families. Findings indicate no differences in child well‐being for children living in cohabiting stepfamilies and cohabiting 2‐biological‐parent families. Multivariate models controlling for child characteristics, economic resources, maternal depressive symptoms, stability, and parenting practices show no significant differences across family types in child well‐being indicators, with the exception of reading skills. Important factors in explaining the link between cohabitation and child well‐being include economic resources, maternal depressive symptoms, and parenting practices.     

Extending the Intergenerational Stake Hypothesis: Evidence of an Intra‐individual Stake and Implications for Well‐being

The intergenerational stake hypothesis suggests that parents are more invested in their children and experience better quality parent–child ties than do their children. In this study the authors examined variation in reports of relationship quality regarding parents and children intra‐individually (do people report better quality ties with their children than with their parents?) and whether within‐person variations have implications for well‐being. Participants age 40–60 (N = 633) reported on their relationship quality (importance, positive quality, and negative quality) with their parents and adult children. Individuals reported their relationships with children were more important and more negative than relationships with parents. Individuals with feelings that were in the opposite direction of the intergenerational stake hypothesis (i.e., greater investment in parents than children) reported poorer well‐being. The findings provide support for the intergenerational stake hypothesis with regard to within‐person variations in investment and show that negative relationship quality may coincide with greater feelings of investment.     

Children's Well‐Being during Parents' Marital Disruption Process: A Pooled Time‐Series Analysis

On the basis of a large, nationally representative multiwave panel, this research examines the extent to which parents' marital disruption process affects children's academic performance and psychological well‐being at 2time points prior to and 2 time points after parental divorce. The results of a pooled time‐series analysis show that compared with peers in intact families, children of divorce fare less well in most well‐being measures at all 4 time points, from approximately 3 years before divorce to 3 years after divorce. Interestingly, whereas the effects of the disruption process on students' test scores demonstrate a linear decline over time, the effects on their social‐psychological measures exhibit a U‐shaped time pattern. Families in the process of marital disruption are also characterized by a deficit in economic and social resources at various time points of this process. These differences in family resources either partially or completely mediate the detrimental effects of the disruption process over time. Furthermore, the process of marital disruption appears to affect girls to the same extent that it does boys. Finally, the causal role of divorce in affecting children is also discussed.     

Mothers' and Fathers' Well‐Being in Parenting Across the Arch of Child Development

Limited research on parental well‐being by child age suggests that parents are better off with very young children despite intense time demands of caring for them. This study uses the American Time Use Survey Well‐Being Module (N = 18,124) to assess how parents feel in activities with children of different ages. Results show that parents are worse off with adolescent children relative to young children. Parents report the lowest levels of happiness with adolescents relative to younger children, and mothers report more stress and less meaning with adolescents. Controlling for contextual features of parenting including activity type, solo parenting, and restorative time does not fully account for the adolescent disadvantage in fathers' happiness or mothers' stress. This study highlights adolescence as a particularly difficult stage for parental well‐being and shows that mothers shoulder stress that fathers do not, even after accounting for differences in the context of their parenting activities.     

Consequences of Dating for Post‐divorce Maternal Well‐being

Repartnering has been linked to health benefits for mothers, yet few studies have examined relationship quality in this context. According to the divorce–stress–adaptation perspective, relationship quality may influence the relationship between maternal well‐being and dating after divorce. The current study examines the consequences of dating, relationship quality, and dating transitions (breaking up and dating new partners) on maternal well‐being (negative affect and life satisfaction). Using monthly surveys completed by mothers over a 2‐year period after filing for divorce, we examined changes in intercepts and slopes of dating status and transitions for maternal well‐being while also testing the effects of relationship quality. Mothers entering high‐quality relationships were likely to report boosts in well‐being at relationship initiation compared to single mothers and mothers entering low‐quality relationships. Mothers entering lower‐quality relationships were likely to report lower levels of well‐being than single mothers. Dating transitions were associated with increases in well‐being. Implications for maternal adjustment are discussed.     

Parental Financial Assistance and Young Adults' Relationships With Parents and Well‐being

Drawing on data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this study examined the impact of parental financial assistance on young adults' relationships with parents and well‐being. Conditional change models were estimated to evaluate the effects of parental financial assistance reported in Wave 3 (ages 18–28) and Wave 4 (ages 24–34) of the study. The results (Ns ranged from 9,128 to 13,389 across outcomes) indicated that financial assistance was positively associated with changes in depressive symptoms and closeness to both mothers and fathers in both periods. Changes in self‐esteem were less robustly linked to parental financial assistance. Although the observed pattern with respect to parent–child relations held regardless of the progress young people had made in the transition to adulthood, the effects for well‐being, which were also relatively small in magnitude, did not. In particular, changes in depressive symptoms associated with financial assistance were concentrated among individuals occupying adult social roles.     

Parental After‐School Stress and Psychological Well‐Being

The mismatch between employed parents’ work schedules and their children's school schedules creates the structural underpinning for an as‐yet‐unstudied stressor, namely, parental after‐school stress, or the degree of parents’ concern about their children's welfare after school. We estimate the relationship between parental after‐school stress and psychological well‐being in a sample of 243 employed parents of children in grades K–12. Parental after‐school stress is related to psychological well‐being. This relationship did not differ by parent gender or child age but was significantly stronger for parents of girls versus boys. Our results suggest that parental after‐school stress is an important stressor that affects the well‐being of a large segment of the work force and warrants further research.     

Re‐framing the Analysis: A 3‐dimensional Perspective of Prisoners’ Children's Well‐being

This article highlights three dimensions to understanding children's well‐being during and after parental imprisonment which have not been fully explored in current research. A consideration of ‘time’ reveals the importance of children's past experiences and their anticipated futures. A focus on ‘space’ highlights the impact of new or altered environmental dynamics. A study of ‘agency’ illuminates how children cope within structural, material and social confines which intensify vulnerability and dependency. This integrated perspective reveals important differences in individual children's experiences and commonalities in broader systemic and social constraints on prisoners’ children. The paper analyses data from a prospective longitudinal study of 35 prisoners’ children during and after their (step) father's imprisonment to illustrate the arguments.     

Emotional Health and Well‐being in Schools: Involving Young People

Prevalence studies of emotional health and well‐being (EHWB) of young people indicate that that there is cause for concern. Very few studies have examined EHWB from the perspective of young people. This study examined the views of young people about their EHWB in the context of secondary education in the UK. Eight focus groups were conducted in five secondary schools with pupils in year 10 (aged 13–14). The findings suggested that whilst pupils thought some aspects of EHWB are well provided for in the school curriculum, there were problems with coherence of EHWB policy. Mental health topics were thought to be neglected in the EHWB curriculum especially in relation to self‐harm. Three problems regarding talking about EHWB were identified. Firstly, the quality of EHWB lessons depended on the enthusiasm and creativity of the teacher taking the lesson. Secondly, pupils were concerned about confidentiality. Thirdly, many pupils preferred to talk to friends about EHWB issues. The findings of the study suggest a need for greater involvement of young people in the planning, implementation and evaluation of the EHWB curriculum.