Spousal Roles on Motivations for Entrepreneurship: A Qualitative Study in New Zealand

Little is known about the role the spouse plays in an entrepreneur’s motivations for entrepreneurship. A gender comparative qualitative study is presented, based on interviews with 68 entrepreneurs (45 men and 23 women) in New Zealand. A continuum of spousal support is described—those whose spouses are co-founders, supportive spouses, and unsupportive/ambivalent spouses. Findings show that women and men tend to have different expectations of their spouse when contemplating starting a business. A woman looks to her husband for business advice, for support, and encouragement and considers the effects that starting a business may have on her spouse. A man tends to assume support is forthcoming, and some men start businesses without explicit spousal support. Contributions to theories of family business are made.     

Gaze in married couples

This study examined the looking behavior of married couples during a 10 minute interaction segment. The variables examined included marital adjustment level, interaction role (speaking or listening) and type of message. Wives were more likely to look at their spouses than husbands were, and speakers were more likely to look at their partners than were listeners. While high marital adjustment spouses looked less over all types of mesages, low marital adjustment spouses particularly looked more than the highs on negative messages, suggesting either a confrontation component to the looking, or a strong need to monitor the partner's reactions in such situations. There was also evidence of more displayed competitiveness in the low marital adjustment couples. Correlational analyses revealed that there were different relationships between the looking behavior of the speaking spouse and the looking behavior of the listening spouse, and between the spouses' patterns of looking when speaking or listening and that these differences were dependent on marital adjustment level.     

Spousal Childcare Involvement and Perceived Support for Paid Work

This study of 76 married or cohabiting two-earner families examined the influence of spouse/partner involvement in childcare and other demand and resource variables on mothers’ and fathers’ perceptions of spouse/partner support for paid work. Gender had a significant influence on the relationship between spouse/partner involvement in childcare and support for paid work. Mothers were more likely to report support for paid work when their spouse/partner shared more of the responsibilities associated with childcare. Fathers were more likely to report support for work when their spouse/partner shared fewer of the responsibilities associated with childcare. The findings also suggest that fathers’ perceptions of spouse/partner support for work are more sensitive to ecological factors than are mothers’ perceptions of support for work.     

Desired Characteristics of Spouses and Best Friends: Do They Differ by Sex and/or Gender?

In view of the salutary effects that having one's spouse as one's best friend are said to impart (G. R. Lee 1988; Schwartz 1994), we investigated the relationship between desired characteristics of a best friend and of a spouse. Consistent with earlier scholarship in this area, we found that desired characteristics overlap considerably for those two roles. We also found that men's and women's selection of characteristics are highly similar and that having a current same-sex or cross-sex best friend did not modify the characteristics chosen for either best friends or spouses. We discuss these findings in terms of the trend toward nontraditional gender role identities and expectations in close relationships.     

Spousal Problems and Family-to-Work Conflict Among Employed US Adults

Using data from the 2011 National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States Refreshed Sample (N?=?980), this paper examines how three types of spousal problems—poor physical health, poor mental health, and behavioral disorders—are related to respondents’ family-to-work conflict (FWC) among employed adults aged 25–61. Results suggest that all three types of their spouses’ problems were related to respondents’ higher FWC, with their spouses’ poor mental health having the strongest association. These associations were not significant after controlling for respondents’ role overload, financial strain, and relationship strain. There were few variations by respondents’ gender and parental status in these associations. Relationship strain played the primary role as a mediator, which was stronger for men than women. These findings support the idea of stress proliferation, suggesting that one’s problems can be linked to a series of other stressors including one’s spouse’s FWC.     

Social Isolation and Spousal Violence: Comparing Female Marriage Migrants With Local Women

This research examined the impact of network participation, social support, and social control on the violence victimization of female marriage migrants by a spouse. Data were from a household survey of 492 cross‐border and 379 local married couples in Hong Kong in 2007. The findings indicated that female marriage migrants were more vulnerable to spousal violence and more socially isolated, compared with local women. Husbands of marriage migrants were also more socially isolated compared with men who married locally. The network participation of both husband and wife was associated positively with spousal violence against women, whereas their perceived social control was associated negatively with violence. Female marriage migrants' greater vulnerability to spousal physical assault was a result of their younger age compared with local women, but their greater vulnerability to spousal psychological aggression and sexual coercion was related, in part, to their own and their husbands' network participation as well as their level of social control.     

THE MULTIPLE FORMS OF AGGRESSIVENESS BETWEEN MARITAL PARTNERS: HOW DO WE IDENTIFY THEM?

One of the difficulties in conducting research that compares violent to nonviolent marriages, is determining exactly which couples are violent and what is the direction of that violence: husband-to-wife, wife-to-husband, or bi-directional. To illustrate this problem, data on the incidence of violence in 103 couples are presented, based on wife's report only, husband's report only, or both spouses' reports. Incidence figures based on the report of either spouse were approximately 100% higher than the incidence based on agreements between spouses. Although slightly more wives than husbands reported severe husband-to-wife aggression, other forms of aggression were reported by more husbands than wives. Discussion focuses on the limitations of frequency data, alone, in assessing marital violence.     

The Social Ecology of Marriage and Other Intimate Unions

This article provides an interdisciplinary framework for studying marital and other intimate relationships. Three levels of analysis are distinguished: (a) the society, characterized in terms of both macrosocietal forces and the ecological niches within which particular spouses and couples function; (b) the individual spouses, including their psychosocial and physical attributes, as well as the attitudes and beliefs they have about each other and their relationship; and (c) the marriage relationship, viewed as a behavioral system embedded within a larger network of close relationships. The discussion focuses primarily on the interplay between the spouses and their marriage, emphasizing the importance of distinguishing, both analytically and operationally, the individual from the dyadic (or group) levels of analysis. It is also argued that in order to appreciate how marriages work, social scientists must understand not only how these 2 levels of analysis interpenetrate each other but also how macrosocietal forces and the ecological niches within which couples live impinge on partners and their marital relationship.     

The Impact of Social Capital on Men's Mental Health from the Perspective of Social Support Theory

This study examines the effects of social capital as it affects men's mental health in the context of work–family balance. Multivariate analyses of data from National Family Research of Japan 2008 have revealed the following. First, the social capital that men receive from their spouses was found to have a direct effect on their distress. The effect of social capital from family other than a spouse does not have a direct effect on men's mental health. Second, only social capital from a spouse was observed to provide a buffering effect. This result implies that, in contemporary Japan, social capital derived from the spouse functions satisfactorily as a bulwark to mitigate the negative effects that the experience of role conflict between work and family has on men's mental health. Finally, the study examines the effect of social capital with reference to social support theory. Subsequent research might usefully focus on varieties of social capital other than those covered in the current study, which will leverage the unique potential of social capital by examining techniques and units of analysis.     

Beyond enmeshment: evidence for the independence of intrusiveness and closeness-caregiving in married couples

In a 1996 article on family theory, we (Green & Werner) proposed that family enmeshment should not be equated with high cohesion and that the construct of enmeshment fails to discriminate between two distinct relationship processes: Closeness-caregiving and intrusiveness. In this study, our model of these two independent dimensions of family connectedness was tested by assessing spouses from 264 couples, using the California Inventory for Family Assessment (CIFA). The CIFA scales showed acceptable reliability. Significant interspouse validity correlations also were obtained. As predicted by our theory, factor analyses distinguished dimensions of intrusiveness (blurring of boundaries) from dimensions of closeness-caregiving (such as warmth and nurturance). On all but two factors, behaviors of only one spouse (but not of both) had interpretable loadings. That is, in most areas, the two spouses' behaviors did not load together to form meaningful factors. The latter finding suggests that family systems theory--with its central notion of reciprocally contingent behaviors between family members--may be useful in understanding only a few dimensions of spouses' behavior (such as reciprocal aggression) whereas personality-in-context theories may be better for understanding most other dimensions (such as warmth and nurturance).     

Spousal caregiving and crossing gender boundaries: Maintaining gendered identities

This study gathered in-depth interview data from a mostly rural sample (N = 22) of primary spousal caregivers for non-institutionalized persons with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and related dementias. In exploring the ways gender might influence caregiving, we find that husbands and wives both cross gender boundaries in order to give care to their spouses; and such traversing presents different challenges to each. Not only must they take on responsibilities that their spouses used to perform, but we also point to a generally invisible but important form of crossing gender boundaries — the maintenance of the gender identities of their spouses. Doing so involves more than simply performing tasks; it involves an implicit recognition of the other as a gendered being and the importance of masculinity or femininity to personal identity. Uncovering this latter dimension, and understanding how men and women approach their new tasks has important implications for theory and policy, including intervention strategies.     

The Context of Spouse Migration to Australia

The article discusses five types of spouse migration. Data on the country of origin of migrant spouses and their sponsoring partners suggest that the largest component of spouse migration is chain migration for marriage, with previous immigrants sponsoring partners from their former home country. Other smaller components are sponsorship of spouses by the second generation from the parents' country of origin; sponsorship of foreign spouses by Australians for intermarriage; and family reunion of spouses separated by refugee movements. Spouse migration from English‐speaking or European countries is often motivated by a preference for Australia's climate or lifestyle rather than marriage to an Australian partner, unlike spouse migration from other parts of the world where the process is more closely related to marriage.     

Reconstituting racial histories and identities: the narratives of interracial couples

This study explores the process by which interracial spouses construct narratives about their racial histories, identities, and experiences in their relationship together. Ten black-white couples were interviewed individually and conjointly. The results reflected interracial spouses' experience of their life together, their perception of others' perceptions of them, and their unique processes of negotiating racial, gender, and class differences. Black spouses, compared with white spouses, demonstrated a greater awareness of and sensitivity to social resistance to interracial couples, and black spouses' familial and personal histories were sometimes relegated to silence in the couple relationship. I discuss recommendations for marriage and family therapists working with interracial spouses.     

From attitudes to social networks: National gender-role attitudes and gender differences in late-life social relationships

Studies often find gender differences in social networks in later life, but are these findings universal, or do they differ in various cultural contexts? To address this research gap, the current study examines the association between gender differences in social relationships and country-level gender-role attitudes. We combined data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) of individuals aged 50 years and older with country-level data on gender-role attitudes from the European Values Survey (EVS) for 15 European countries. We estimated a series of multivariate hierarchical regression models that predicted the size of the personal social network, its emotional closeness, and the proportion of the spouse, children, and friends in the network. The results indicated gender differences in social network characteristics. Women reported larger social networks and were more likely to have larger proportions of children and friends but smaller proportions of the spouse in their social networks. The magnitude of gender differences was associated with country-level gender-role attitudes. In countries with more egalitarian gender-role attitudes, women had larger networks with a larger proportion of friends compared to men. In countries with more traditional gender-role attitudes, women had larger proportions of their children and spouse in their social networks and had emotionally closer networks. Our findings suggest that the societal context and opportunity structures for social interactions play an important role in shaping the structure of women’s and men’s social relationships in later life.     

Do husbands and wives pool their incomes? A couple experiment

We propose a simple and direct test of in-couple income pooling and provide a typology of couples that pool resources and those who do not. For this purpose, we performed a five-round experiment with 95 established real-life couples in Germany. In each round, the couples received the same total amount of money, but the relative allocation to the spouses differed and they had to agree on an irreversible private goods consumption pattern. We find that for the majority of the sample, the consumption choices depend on the spouses’ relative resources. While this suggests a rejection of income pooling at the mean, a substantial share of the couples do indeed pool their resources. Pooling behavior is more common among couples in which the spouses’ socioeconomic characteristics are more similar. In particular, traditional couples with distinct work division between the spouses are significantly less likely to pool their individual resources and treat any spouse’s income symmetrically. Conventional variables used to approximate income pooling are only loosely related to the behavior observed in our experiment.     

Friendships Between Former Spouses

Abstract

This article considers friendships between fonner spouses on two levcls: research content and process. The content consists of three case studies: (1) a test case in which each fonner spouse confirms the other's personal growth, (2) a negative case in which the former spouses disagree about whether they are friends, and (3) a third case in which the fonner spouses agree that they are friends but describe their friendship diffcrcntly. In a three-stage research process, these case studies explore the variability of friendships between fornier spouses. Using features of reflexivity, or the researcher's scrutiny of her or his own research assumptions and process, this article describes: (I) choice of research topic, (2) serendipity, (3) procedural decisions, (4) pcrsonal observations and reactions, and (5) exploratoty qualitative research as a dynamic three-stage process. The purpose of describing these features of the research process is to help other investigators leam how to do exploratoly qualitative research. Findings from the case studies have implications for additional research and clinical interventions.     

Human capital and interethnic marriage decisions

Common explanations for the generally negative relationship between education and ethnic endogamy include (1) education makes immigrants and their children better able to adapt to native culture thereby eliminating the need for a same-ethnicity spouse and (2) education raises the likelihood of leaving ethnic enclaves, thereby decreasing the probability of meeting potential same-ethnicity spouses. This paper considers a third option, the role of assortative matching on education. If education distributions differ by ethnicity, then spouse-searchers may trade similarities in ethnicity for similarities in education when choosing spouses. U.S. Census data on second-generation immigrants provide strong support for the assortative matching mechanism.     

The potential of online social networking data for augmenting the study of high-risk personal networks among young men who have sex with men at-risk for HIV

Capturing dynamics in high-risk personal networks is essential for preventing HIV transmission. Online social networking data offer incentive to augment traditional selfreported approaches for network enumeration. To explore what online networks reveal about dynamics among high-risk associates, we examine the relationship between egocentric confidant and sex networks and personal Facebook friendship networks of a cohort of young Black men who have sex with men. Although overlap exists between self-reported and Facebook associates, the stabilities of each were unrelated. Confidants who were also Facebook friends with a respondent were, however, more likely to be retained. Thus, Facebook networks contain stable confidants.     

Spouse support and the retention intentions of air force members: A basis for program development

Drawing upon a probability sample of 700 couples (1,400 spouses) in the U.S. Air Force, the present study examines the direct and indirect impacts of spouse support on the retention intentions of enlisted men, officer men, and enlisted women. In addition, exploratory analysis is conducted to identify variables associated with variations in spouse support. Restricting the sample to members with less than 10 years of service, spouse support is found to have a significant and positive effect on the retention intentions of the three respondent groups via path analysis. The results are discussed in the context of empirically validating the assumptions for program planning and development that are partially based on the assumed importance of spouse support to the retention intentions of members. Implications are suggested for future research.     

Social Networks and Individual Perceptions: Explaining Differential Participation in Social Movements

This paper seeks to explain differential participation in social movements. It does so by attempting to bridge structural-level and individual-level explanations. We test a number of hypotheses drawn from the social networks and the rationalist perspectives on individual engagement by means of survey data on members of a major organization of the Swiss solidarity movement. Both perspectives find empirical support: the intensity of participation depends both on the embeddedness in social networks and on the individual perceptions of participation, that is, the evaluation of a number of cognitive parameters related to engagement. In particular, to be recruited by an activist and the perceived effectiveness of one's own potential contribution are the best predictors of differential participation. We specify the role of networks for social movements by looking at the nature and content of networks and by distinguishing between three basic functions of networks: structurally connecting prospective participants to an opportunity to participate, socializing them to a protest issue, and shaping their decision to become involved. The latter function implies that the embeddedness in social networks significantly affects the individual perceptions of participation.