Couple‐Level Economic and Career Concerns and Intimate Partner Violence in Young Adulthood

Family scholars have demonstrated that economic conditions influence marital quality and relationship instability. Similarly, researchers have identified low income and poverty as important risk factors for intimate partner violence (IPV). Yet limited work has examined how economic factors influence the use of violence in the romantic context, particularly during young adulthood. Using the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (n = 928), the authors examined the influence of economic and career concerns as specific sources of conflict on IPV among a sample of young adults. Findings suggest that these areas of disagreement within romantic relationships are associated with IPV risk, net of traditional predictors. The implications of our findings for intervention and prevention efforts are discussed.     

“His” and “her” marriage expectations: Determinants and consequences

This article uses couple‐level data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N= 2,263) to investigate factors associated with unmarried parents’ expectations about marriage and the association between their expectations and subsequent union transitions. In most couples, both partners expect to marry, and their shared expectations are the strongest predictor of marriage and separation following their child's birth. Although men's expectations are somewhat more consequential for union transitions, marriage and relationship stability are more likely when at least one parent expects to marry. Factors such as children from previous relationships, distrust, conflict, and shared activities are also associated with union transitions. Findings about how expectations and other factors relate to marriage and separation may inform new marriage promotion initiatives.     

Transition to fatherhood: New perspectives in the global context of changing men's identities

The proposed thematic session aims to highlight the main challenges that the cultural and structural changes within the families and in gender relations and the changing social expectations about men's involvement in the care of children and about fatherhood pose to men's and fathers’ identity. Fathering in contemporary society requires men to be simultaneously provider, guide, household help and nurturer. The difficulties of these roles, and the tensions they sometimes produce, challenge men's relationships with their female partners, the meaning and place of work in their lives and their sense of self as competent adults. We will also explore the relationship between transitions to fatherhoods and the challenges of balancing work and family obligations. How to balance paid work, other interests and relationships with responsibilities, anxieties and pleasures of childrearing are today concerns for both men and women.     

Race/Ethnic Differences in the Marital Expectations of Adolescents: The Role of Romantic Relationships

I use a sample of 12,973 adolescents in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to examine race/ethnic differences in perception of the likelihood of marriage in adulthood and the role of heterosexual romantic relationship experience in explaining this difference. Compared to adolescents from other race/ethnic backgrounds, White adolescents are more likely to date and are especially more likely than Black adolescents to participate in serious romantic relationships that increase marital expectations. Although the type of current or recent relationship is associated with marital expectations, they do not explain the observed race/ethnic gap in these expectations. Overall, the results suggest that these adolescent romantic experiences likely play only a small role in determining differential marital expectations.     

And roses too: How “Better Work” facilitates gender empowerment in global supply chains

Women's increasing entry into paid work has not been accompanied by a corresponding change in the gender division of unpaid labor in the household and community. Though women participate in the labor market, the expectation is that they will also take responsibility for the household. To what degree does women's waged work in the garment industry transform gender norms and dynamics in their home lives? To what extent do the choices they make translate to their household-level empowerment? This practice-focused article examines these questions by looking at data collected on gender dynamics at work and at home in the clothing industries of Bangladesh, Cambodia, Kenya, Lesotho, and Vietnam. While women's empowerment through garment sector employment remains circumscribed by low wages, financial insecurity, and gendered expectations, we find that international interventions, namely the International Labor Organization's Better Work program, has expanded women's abilities to exert agency over their earnings within the context of household resource allocation and has decreased the negative effects of ongoing and systemic financial precarity.     

Looking within the household: a study on gender,food security,and resilience in cocoa-growing communities

Many West African cocoa households experience a ‘lean season’ before the cocoa harvest, leaving them vulnerable to various events and issues which potentially cause stress – most notably food insecurity. This study, relying primarily on qualitative data from Côte d'Ivoire, examines how income allocation and intra-household dynamics affect household resilience during the lean season. Its findings indicate that in contexts in which women and men's income are separate and destined for different purposes in the household, the fact that men's income is often earmarked for individual spending creates particular problems for households in the lean season. Women's empowerment within the household is essential to improving intra-household resource allocation for resilience. In many contexts, this translates into development programmes supporting women to increase their production and ability to control income independently of men. However, a context of individual gendered agricultural production, and gendered spending obligations, such as West Africa, calls for a slightly different approach. Enhancing agricultural productivity is critical, but in addition it is important to encourage co-operation between women and men in households to result in joint decision-making in the interests of the household.     

From “nobody's clapping for us” to “bad moms”: COVID-19 and the circle of childcare in Canada

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of childcare to national economies in general and women's economic participation in particular, spurring renewed interest in childcare policy in many countries that have implemented lockdowns. This paper adopts a circle of care framework to analyzes how COVID-19 has affected paid childcare, unpaid childcare and other paid work, and the relationship between these sectors. Analysis is grounded in the lived experiences of parents and childcare educators, documented through 16 semi-structured interviews during the initial lockdown (March–June 2020) in British Columbia, Canada. Experiences from educators suggest their safety was not prioritized, and that their contributions were undervalued and went unrecognized. Mothers, who provided the majority of unpaid care, not only lost income due to care demands, but struggled to access necessities, with some reporting increased personal insecurity. Those attempting to work from home also experienced feelings of guilt and distress as they tried to manage the triple burden. Similarities of experiences across the circle of care suggest the COVID-19 childcare policy response in BC Canada downloaded care responsibilities on to women without corresponding recognition or support, causing women to absorb the costs of care work, with potential long-term negative effects on women's careers and well-being, as well as on the resilience of the circle of care. Pandemic recovery and preparedness policies that aim to promote gender equality must consider all sectors of the circle of care and the relationships between them.     

Married to the Military: Filipinas Negotiating Transnational Families

Women migrating transnationally as "entertainers" within Asia are particularly exposed to the possibility of forming relationships in these transnational sites. This is because the nature of their work, which entails chatting and dancing with customers and various forms of sexual labour, including fondling, kissing and sometimes sex, often leads to romantic liaisons with customers in the clubs where they are deployed. This possibility is even more pronounced for women who are trafficked (that is, deceptively recruited and employed) as entertainers, as they often counter the severe vulnerabilities associated with their positions by relying on customers-cum-boyfriends for support and assistance. Marriage is one common result of these liaisons. This paper considers the multiple impacts of such marriages for foreign female entertainers on family. I focus particularly on the ways such marriages can both constrain existing family responsibilities and facilitate new ones. The paper draws on the case of Filipinas married to American soldiers in Korea as a case study for discussion. I suggest that migrant women who become involved in such marriages are often pulled between the potentially conflicting demands of old (within their home countries) and new (with their American soldier husbands) family ties and responsibilities. I also suggest that these women's new families, whilst outwardly displaying elements of traditional gendered household roles and structures, are often characterised by long absences of the husband (to other countries or within the country of residence) and long-term patterns of transnational migration that can have a highly disruptive impact on family arrangements.     

Work and Health: A Study of the Occupational and Domestic Roles of Women Registered Nurses and Registered Practical Nurses in Ontario,Canada

Links between work and health are explored in this study of a proportional random sample of 1190 women Registered Nurses (RNs) and 643 women Registered Practical Nurses (RPNs) in the province of Ontario, Canada. First, features of the paid and unpaid work of the RNs and RPNs are outlined. The professional status of RNs is reflected in their greater control, responsibility, accountability and tensions embedded in their relationships with physicians. In contrast, RPNs are frontline workers with fewer career opportunities, less control in their work and lower pay. There are also common elements in their nursing work: heavy workloads, exposure to hazards, and the stress of dealing with death and dying and with violent patients. The main difference with respect to the domestic sphere is the substantially higher mean household income of RNs. Multivariate analysis is then used to explore the combined effects of paid and unpaid work on nurses' health. Exposure to hazards in nursing, time pressures with respect to home responsibilities and overall stress in life were associated with increased health problems. There is also evidence that workload issues are linked with poorer health. Social support in the form of a confiding relationship with a friend is associated with better health. One of the main differences between RNs and RPNs in the variables associated with health is in relation to children; contrary to our expectations, having one to four children is linked with better health for RNs. It is suggested that the higher household incomes of RNs may alter the nature of their home responsibilities and the interaction between the two spheres of work may differ. In conclusion, the findings are set in the context of restructuring in the healthcare sector.     

The Role of Household Social Organization in the Structure of Rural Economies: Comparing Forest Resource Dependent and Agriculturally Dependent Regions in Russia

Sociologists have examined how structural economic change affects household social organization and generation of household income from different sources. The introduction of elements of a market economy into rural Russia in the early 1990s provides a unique opportunity to examine these relationships. Much of the work on this topic, however, has been conducted in black earth zone, agriculturally dependent regions. Less attention has been given to non‐black‐earth zone, forest resource dependent regions. This article addresses this limitation by comparing the relationships between household income generation strategies and household social organization in a 2009 survey of villages in three forest resource dependent regions in northwest Russia with findings from a 2006 survey of households in nine agricultural regions of Russia. Income generated from enterprises based on household social organization—household labor and social helping networks—is substantially greater in agriculturally dependent than in forest resource dependent regions. We discuss the implications of these findings for understanding intranational regional differences in the relationship between economic systems, household social organization, and rural household economies as well as the obstacles facing policymakers and environmentalists who attempt to shift household income generation strategies away from an environmentally harmful lumber industry to income generation activities that are less harmful to the environment.     

Gendered expectations of the biographical and social future: young adults’ approaches to short and long-term thinking

Numerous studies have found that although young adults are arguably less constrained by gendered norms and expectations than previous generations, they have nevertheless continued to imagine their biographical futures in highly gendered ways. In this paper I draw on an analysis of 28 in-depth interviews in which 16 women and 12 men (aged 18–34) were asked to discuss their expectations for both the biographical and social future. The results of this study largely confirm the findings of previous scholarship, with young women often viewing childbearing and caring responsibilities as compulsory, while young men largely viewed these commitments as complementary to their chosen careers. This paper extends existing findings in this area by examining, firstly, whether these perceptions of the biographical future are mirrored in the participants’ views of the long-term, social future, and secondly, what implications such views may have when they are extended into this register. In so doing it ultimately finds that the gender norms that shape young adults’ expectations for their own futures are echoed in their outlooks upon the social future.     

Decade Review of Research on Lesbian Romantic Relationship Satisfaction

There has been a steady increase of research dedicated to understanding the quality and satisfaction of same-sex romantic relationships, but studies explicitly focused on lesbian relationships have been particularly limited due to the tendencies of researchers to combine this female subgroup with other sexual orientations (e.g., men who are gay and individuals who are bisexual). Thus researchers and practitioners trying to understand and promote healthy romantic relationships in the lesbian community struggle in aggregating what is known about the resilience and risk factors that are associated with relationship satisfaction. This review organized existing empirical knowledge by synthesizing articles that have been written on the satisfaction of self-identified, lesbian romantic relationships over the past decade. Results are presented with an emphasis on what has been found about relationship quality and satisfaction among couples who are lesbian and what should be considered in future scientific, educational, or clinical work focused on couples who are lesbian.     

The Tempo of Sexual Activity and Later Relationship Quality

Rapid sexual involvement may have adverse long‐term implications for relationship quality. This study examined the tempo of sexual intimacy and subsequent relationship quality in a sample of married and cohabiting men and women. Data come from the Marital and Relationship Survey, which provides information on nearly 600 low‐ to moderate‐income couples living with minor children. Over one third of respondents became sexually involved within the first month of the relationship. Bivariate results suggested that delaying sexual involvement was associated with higher relationship quality across several dimensions. The multivariate results indicated that the speed of entry into sexual relationships was negatively associated with marital quality, but only among women. The association between relationship tempo and relationship quality was largely driven by cohabitation. Cohabiting may result in poorer quality relationship because rapid sexual involvement early in the romantic relationship is associated with entrance into shared living.     

Understanding Sheng Nu (“Leftover Women”): the Phenomenon of Late Marriage among Chinese Professional Women

In the past few decades, there has been a rise in the number of single, unmarried Chinese professional women, which is known as the sheng nu or “leftover women” phenomenon. Through an interactionist grounded theory method, this study has located the interactional constraints faced by 50 single Chinese professional women that were issued by their male romantic partners and parents, respectively. “Discriminatory” and “controlling” gendered constraints issued by the women's male suitors and partners reflected the persistence of the Chinese patriarchal structure, and this was found to be the leading cause of the women being “leftover” in the marriage market. Parents' traditional views continued to exert strong influences on the women's marital choices, but this was seen to conflict with their more “modern” views toward advocating and supporting the women's strong economic achievements. The four different types of Chinese professional women that were constructed based on their different partner choice strategies not only gave rise to an in‐depth and nuanced understanding of the sheng nu phenomenon in China, but could also be generalized toward understanding the marital choices of single professional women in other patriarchal societies who faced similar dilemmas in reconciling interactional constraints imposed by men and parents alike.     

Spousal resources and relationship quality in eight European countries

ABSTRACT

We relate relationship satisfaction and thoughts about leaving a romantic relationship to a couple’s relative and absolute resources and check for context-dependency of those associations. Our theoretical point of departure is that the more resources women have compared to their spouses, the higher their intra-household bargaining power to negotiate themselves out of unpleasant tasks, particularly in gender-egalitarian and very income equal and unequal societies. In traditional societies (which score low on the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM)), the inflexible role of men within the household presumably prevents women from bargaining a better position, which in turn negatively affects relationship quality. Income equality (low GINI coefficient) may be a prerequisite for women’s bargaining position, where more inequality (mid-GINI) may be detrimental for it. Nevertheless, extreme income inequality (high GINI) may again be favorable for women’s relationship power. Using country fixed effects models on data from the Generations and Gender Surveys (GGS), we compare men and women who are in a couple (formed after 1995) for eight European countries. We find that absolute resources matter more than relative resources, at least for relationship satisfaction: Higher educated couples are more satisfied with their relationships, which could suggest lower stress levels in those couples (in more traditional contexts). Second, we observe GINI context-dependency of the association between relative education and relationship satisfaction for women and relative education and exit thoughts for men, although opposite to what we expected. Perhaps reference group theory or gender display theory can explain these unexpected results. Finally, we find that women have more break-up plans in societies with a lower score on GEM. This last result is consistent with the notion that bargaining only works in egalitarian contexts.     

Occupational Destinations and Economic Mobility of Filipino Overseas Workers1

This study examines employment and occupational shifts experienced by Filipino overseas contract workers in the transition from country of origin to country of destination and examines the impact of labor migration on economic conditions and standard of living of the families left behind. Data for the analyses were obtained from a representative sample of 2,346 households drawn from four primary sending areas in the Philippines. The analyses focus on characteristics of the households and of the household members employed overseas. The findings reveal that a considerable number of overseas workers (both men and women) were unemployed prior to migration and that the overwhelming majority of these workers were recruited to fill low‐status (manual and service) occupations in the host country. The analysis demonstrates that the odds for Filipino overseas workers to be employed in low‐status occupations were extremely high, net of human capital characteristics, net of the occupations they held in the Philippines, and net of country of destination. Further analysis reveals that overseas employment is associated with a substantial increase in earnings (five‐fold for men and four‐fold for women). Comparison between households with and without overseas workers reveals that, net of household characteristics, the flows of income earned abroad are used to purchase household goods to improve standard of living. These findings provide firm support to expectations derived from the household theory of migration according to which labor migration is a strategy adopted by the household unit to allocate family resources rationally to increase the flows of income in order to raise the family standard of living.     

Parental Residential and Partnering Transitions and the Initiation of Adolescent Romantic Relationships

This study focused on the possible links between parental residential and partnering transitions (a parent's move out of the household, introduction of a new maternal and paternal partner) and the initiation of romantic relationships in adolescence. Using data from a prospective cohort study of Dutch adolescents (the TRacking Adolescents' Individual Lives Survey; N = 1,513), recurrent event discrete‐time models with random effects were estimated, controlling for the initial family structure and quality of family climate. The results demonstrated that when all 3 events were considered, only the initiation of a new romantic relationship by the mother was associated with an increase in the odds of initiating a romantic relationship for the adolescent.     

Non-Sexist “Marital” Therapy*

Certain factors limit marital therapists in dealing with individuals conflicted over and disenchanted about “traditional” marriage: 1) the therapist's gender, 2) the presence of sex-role stereotyped behaviors and expectations, and 3) the therapists own marital experience. Specific helpful experiences (working with a co-therapist of the opposite sex, examining attitudes and biases toward divorce) and therapeutic techniques (working out a schedule for sharing household tasks and childcare, restructuring the marital contract, and dealing with open companionship) are discussed. The general therapeutic goal is working toward an equal sharing of overt power, with social, economic, and political considerations and intrapsychic forces given comparable consideration.